


Frosen Steel Week AU Oneshots

by Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis



Series: Frosen Steel Week [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis/pseuds/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis
Summary: A collection of AU oneshots for Frosen Steel weekDay 1 - Fantasy/MedievalDay 2 - SoulmateDay 3 - GoddessesDay 4 - ModernDay 5 - MechanicsDay 6 - High SchoolDay 7 - SuperheroesDay 8 - Free Day
Relationships: Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Penny Polendina/Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Series: Frosen Steel Week [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984754
Comments: 35
Kudos: 108





	1. Fantasy/Medieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weiss Schnee, Princess Regent of Atlas finds herself in need of a partner in order to be crowned and soon finds herself beset by suitors, only two catch her eye, however...

Weiss Schnee, Princess Regent of the Kingdom of Atlas wasn’t entirely sure how things had ended up like this, but here she was, about to officiate a completely unnecessary duel for her hand in marriage.

“Are you both sure you want to go through with this?” She asked one last time, looking between the two combatants, who nodded, not taking their eyes off one another. “Very well. When I drop my handkerchief, the bout shall begin. Whoever yields, loses, and the victor gains the privilege of my hand in marriage.”

With a deep sigh, she held out the scrap of lace, and just before releasing it, she thought back to how this ridiculous situation had started.

* * *

It had all begun a few months ago. After the ousting of her father, Weiss found herself in the unenviable position of being next in line for the crown. Her elder sister had been married off to the reigning queen of the neighbouring kingdom of Mantle, thus leaving Weiss to take the Atlesian throne. Of course, owing to some archaic traditions of Atlas, she was disallowed from being crowned until such a time as she was wed.

Weiss had never put too much thought into marriage, preferring instead to focus on her lessons in statecraft and fencing rather than learning to court. Of course, once news got out that Princess Regent Weiss was in need of a partner, suitors came flooding to the castle, all intending to win her hand.

Naturally, she rejected them all. None could measure up to her standards, and those that came close put her off with their slimy attitudes towards her. It had gotten to the point that Weiss had started looking through the castle’s library for a way to change the law so she could be crowned without needing to be married.

“Weiss, you’ve been at this for days now. Maybe it’s time you stopped?” A voice interrupted Weiss as she pored over what must have been the hundredth manuscript she’d read that day. Looking up, she laid eyes upon her constant companion, Penny.

The Polendina family weren’t the most prominent noble family, but they’d risen to the upper echelons of Atlesian nobility on the back of the current head of the family’s innovations and inventions that brought the kingdom into the modern era. His sewage system was credited as one of the greatest creations of their time.

Their position had been elevated even further when Weiss had personally selected Penny to be both her lady-in-waiting and personal bodyguard. She seemed innocent, but the young woman was a devil with a blade, of which she carried a great many, and could give Weiss a run for her money.

“You know me too well to know I won’t stop until I am sure I have exhausted this avenue.” Weiss smiled tiredly up at Penny. She didn’t deserve the young woman’s devoted service. Penny was far too good for her, and Weiss had no idea of how she could repay her for everything she’d done.

Well, Weiss could think of one way, but the noble families would never allow it. The Polendina’s were sadly not of a high enough position, which was truly a disappointment, as Weiss could not imagine a woman more suited to rule by her side.

Alas, it was not to be, and Weiss was stuck waiting for a passable suitor from a suitably highborn family. So far the least objectionable had been the young Lord Vasilias. Even if he did have that frightful fear of water, she could overlook that. And she did suppose he was reasonably handsome, though his roguish charm didn’t hold a candle to the steadfast support of her Penny.

“Weiss, I’m afraid I must insist. It is nearly time for your weekly open forum.” Weiss sighed, regretting her decision to implement this. The smallfolk of the capital had not been well treated during her father’s reign, and Weiss had sought to correct that by holding regular meetings where they could come to the castle and air whatever grievances they had.

It had worked well at first, and it pleased the populace greatly to have a monarch that cared for their concerns. Unfortunately, after word had gotten out about her need for a partner, her forum had been invaded by these suitors taking the opportunity when they would not be turned away to ask for her hand and try to impress her.

“Oh, I suppose I must put my research on hold then.” Weiss grumbled, taking note of her place in the manuscript before standing up and smoothing out her gowns. “I don’t suppose you know which of my more abhorrent admirers will be in attendance?”

“I did hear that Count Marigold would be in attendance.” Penny confided, and Weiss affected a shudder.

“Oh dear Goddess, not him.” She groaned, remembering the boorish young man. He had little by way of manners, and an irksome habit of pushing commoners around as though they were nothing, as opposed to the foundation of their society. Weiss was very much aware that the smallfolk far outnumbered the rich and noble-born, and too much malcontent would upend the current order. In short, Count Marigold was far from a suitable husband for her, or anyone for that matter.

“I’m sorry, Weiss. I could ask the guards to have him removed discreetly.” Penny offered, and Weiss’ heart swelled a little at her devotion.

“No, thank you, Penny. The forums are for all and all are welcome.” It would not do her well to renege on her promises, not when she was already fighting an uphill battle against her father’s cruel legacy. “But let us get this over with. I find myself rather lacking in patience today.”

* * *

“So you see, Your Majesty, the levies raised by the farmer’s guild are far too high when the jeweller’s guild pays barely any at all, yet they reap the most rewards of royal sponsorship whilst we get barely a pittance.” Weiss was trying her best to pay complete attention to the representative but her patience was running very thin by now. She’d had to endure no fewer than six proposals, all of which she’d turned down with a decreasing amount of grace, and Count Marigold hadn’t even taken to the podium yet as he waited impatiently for the farmer to finish.

“I see. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, my treasurers and I shall look into this matter, and you can expect a response by the end of the week as to whether any action shall be taken.” Weiss decreed as her scribe dutifully noted down the decision and the guild representative bowed his thanks before shuffling off.

Weiss stifled a groan as Count Marigold strode up to the central podium, smarmy grin firmly in place as he bowed low. “Your Majesty, what an honour it is to one again be in your presence.”

“Would you please speed it up a little, Count? We do have limited time and I would like to hear from everybody today.” Weiss interrupted testily, examining her nails. Count Marigold coughed and tried to regain his train of thought.

“Right, Your Majesty, I have come once more to ask for your fair hand in marriage, our union shall be-.”

“No.” Weiss answered flatly, her patience finally snapping.

“What?”

“I said no. I have no interest in marrying you, Count Marigold. I had none when you first asked me two weeks ago and my mind has not changed since.” Weiss glared at the upstart nobleman as he blustered. “Now, your concern has been addressed. Please leave so I can get back to what I am supposed to be doing here.”

“Why, you insolent bitch!” He burst out, making no move to leave. “I am the best match you could ever hope for. Your father himself favoured my offer.” With an evil glare, he made to approach Weiss’ seat, but Penny was already moving to intercept him, one of her falchions sliding out of its scabbard. Somehow, though, she was slower than a blur of red that blocked the Count’s path with a polearm.

“The Princess Regent asked you to leave.” The red-cloaked stranger said sternly, twisting her weapon so the blade was up to Marigold’s throat. There was something enchanting about the stranger’s voice that drew Weiss in, how the light Valish accent played over the syllables. She was so enraptured by the voice that she barely noticed how her guards and Penny moved in to protect her from this new threat.

Count Marigold gulped loudly and slowly backed away from Weiss, then broke into an undignified run, fleeing the chambers to the loud amusement of the assembled smallfolk. Satisfied the rude count had left, the red-cloaked stranger lowered her weapon and bowed low to Weiss.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but that man was far too rude to be allowed to continue to speak to you in that manner.”

“You are forgiven, Lady…?”

“Rose, Your Majesty, Ruby Rose, but I’m afraid I am no lady.” Ruby apologised as she straightened up and pulled back her hood to reveal a piercing silver gaze. The young woman’s name rang a bell, but Weiss couldn’t place it until Penny leaned in discreetly.

“She’s a slayer of beasts and monsters, Weiss, a much loved and well-known one at that.” There was an odd amount of what sounded like disapproval in Penny’s voice, but the reminder jogged Weiss’ memory. Now she remembered hearing about a young huntress in the outer reaches of the kingdom who’d been slaying several troublesome threats to her people.

“I see, and what brings you to my court, Miss Rose.” Weiss asked inquisitively, already eager to hear more of her musical voice.

“Ah, well that is a rather embarrassing thing, Your Majesty, given what your previous petitioner was ejected for.” The young huntress smiled awkwardly up at Weiss. “You see, I too came to ask for your hand in marriage.”

Weiss was a little taken aback by this, and so too was her court, quiet muttering sounded from around the room and she could have sworn she heard Penny’s teeth grinding for some reason.

“Collecting herself, Weiss let out an appropriately reserved laugh. “Oh, I’m very flattered by your offer, Miss Rose.” She wasn’t lying when she said that, out of all the people who had proposed to her, this Ruby Rose was by far the most appealing, only rivalled by her beloved Penny. “But I’m afraid only someone of noble birth can wed into the house of Schnee.”

“Oh, that’s not actually a problem Your Majesty.” Miss Rose piped up to the shock of the court and Weiss’ brows knit in confusion.

“How so?”

“I read through all the laws of the land, it’s a hobby of mine.” She grinned sheepishly which Weiss found oddly endearing. “And I’ve double checked it with a magistrate, there is no law that prevents those of common birth from wedding into the royal family.”

There was even more muttering at this revelation, the nobles weren’t even bothering to hide it anymore. All of them were discussing this young upstart who had the gall to suggest that the Princess Regent could just marry anybody.

Weiss, however, did not partake in the discussion. She was busy turning this new information over in her head. She did not recall seeing such a stipulation in her own research, but if it were true…

“You’re certain this is correct, Miss Rose?” Weiss spoke loudly, quieting the hubbub as all eyes fixed on her.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The young woman’s eyes shone earnestly and Weiss found herself captivated by those silvery pools. 

“Your Majesty.” One of her advisors had bustled over and was hissing in her ear. “I urge you to think about this. There’s still plenty of eligible suitors out there of noble birth. You liked young Lord Vasilias, did you not?” Weiss wasn’t really listening to the man. Her mind was whirling as she worked out her new plan of action.

It wouldn’t take her too long to confirm whether Ruby Rose was correct about the laws and if she was, Weiss would need to be fast otherwise she’d be even more inundated with requests for her hand. And it didn’t hurt that, even in these few brief minutes with Miss Rose, Weiss had felt more attracted to her than she thought it would be possible. There was just something about this strong huntress that intrigued the Princess Regent and inflamed her passions.

“Weiss, please think about this.” Penny implored, her eyes so wide and desperate they gave Weiss pause. She had considered asking Penny to marry her, and with this new information, she could. But it would both be rude to Miss Rose reject her outright and then ask Penny. Not to mention, of course, she had no idea if Penny would accept her proposal, she’d never shown any romantic interest in her before so Weiss had to assume that there was none.

“Miss Rose.” Weiss spoke regally with an amused smile on her face. “If what you’ve said is true, then I shall gl-.”

“Weiss, will you marry me?” There was a loud shout from beside Weiss and she turned, stunned to see Penny down on one knee before her. “I have served you faithfully all these years, please allow me to serve you as your wife as well.”

Weiss was stunned, unsure of what to say. Penny had just proposed to her, in front of all of her court and another suitor who was now glaring daggers at Penny.

“Excuse me, but I think you just interrupted Her Majesty as she was about to accept my proposal.” Ruby sniped in irritation, stalking towards the still kneeling bodyguard.

“I am the closest to Weiss. If anyone should marry her, it should be me.” Penny insisted, emphasising the informal use of Weiss’ name. “Out of professional courtesy, I shall not hold your affections for my lady against you, but you won’t win against me in a competition for her affections.”

“You seem to have a very high estimation of yourself, Lady Polendina.” Ruby sneered, still glowering at Penny whilst the rest of the court watched with bated breath. “Perhaps a challenge, then? What if we were to both court the Princess Regent for a period of… let’s say, a week, and then she can decide.”

“Miss Rose, I-.” Weiss tried to interrupt, but was cut off by Penny.

“I accept.”

* * *

And so the challenge was set, and for the next week, Weiss was inundated with gifts and other courtship gestures, and she found herself torn between the two women who competed for her hand. Immediately after the forum had been adjourned, Weiss had retired to the library to pore over the texts to confirm Ruby’s story, and true enough, none of the laws she found forbade the marriage of a commoner into the royal family. 

She had also found a few other interesting loopholes that she tried to bring to the attention of her two suitors, but they were both too engrossed in their competition. Every day, they would try to one-up the other. Ruby would bring her trinkets from afar and rare items looted from her monster-slaying, all with a confident bluster. Meanwhile, Penny would, with her usual shy and reserved manner, gift Weiss various mechanical devices she’d created with the assistance of her father, as well as soft words of love and encouragement.

It baffled Weiss that she had missed her lady-in-waiting’s feelings for her, and one would think that their time together would make the decision an easy one. And yet… There really was just something about Ruby, how she carried herself, the way she would swagger into the court with a confident smirk, ready to present Weiss with her next courting gift. It absolutely enraptured the Princess Regent, and though she was loathe to admit it, she did lust after the handsome huntress.

The week all but flew by, and Weiss was confronted with an impossible choice, and as much as she tried to propose her third solution, neither woman was willing to listen.

“So who do you choose, Weiss? Me or her?” Penny asked, eyes wide and pleading.

“I-I…” Weiss struggled to formulate a proper answer, pressured as she was by the two women.

“You’re putting too much pressure on her, you’re making it impossible for her to choose.” Ruby said, changing her attention to Penny and scowling. “There’s an easy solution to this.”

“What?” Penny turned to Ruby, glaring darkly.

“One of us willingly backs down.”

“And how do you propose we do that, exactly?” Penny raised an eyebrow at the huntress who smirked cockily.

“Simple, we duel. No killing or maiming, and the loser is the first to yield.”

“Penny, Ruby I-.” Weiss tried to cut in, but Penny spoke over her.

“I accept. Weiss, will you officiate?”

“I-.”

“Good. One hour, the duelling grounds in front of the castle.” Penny told Ruby before striding away, presumably to prepare herself as Ruby did the same, leaving Weiss standing in the middle of the great hall, completely nonplussed.

* * *

The lace handkerchief was released and the two warriors ran for each other, Ruby letting out a loud war cry. Lashing out with her war scythe, she tried to end the fight quickly, but Penny parried the wide swing with one of her falchions and continued to close the gap. Her second sword flashed out, trying to catch Ruby across the chest, and forced the huntress to dodge back and bring her polearm up in a defensive stance.

The two combatants eyed each other warily, grips shifting minutely on their weapons before Penny moved in, her shorter range putting her at a disadvantage to Ruby’s longer reach. But Penny had never been one to back down from a challenge, and it seemed she had an advantage of her own against the huntress.

Ruby’s attacks all seemed to have a lot of extraneous movements, lashing out with the blunt end of her weapon at an enemy that wasn’t there, and it took Weiss a moment of concerned thinking to determine why. Clearly, out in the wilds, a duel was not something monsters tended towards. They attacked in large packs, and the young huntress must have been used to fighting many opponents at once. Penny, who had trained for years in one-on-one combat against other fighters, had an edge that seemed to more than make up for her comparative lack of reach.

The weapons sang out as they clashed, and Weiss watched with increasing worry as the fight grew more and more furious. It was Ruby who scored first blood, keeping Penny at bay with her long weapon, she was able to bring the blade around fast enough to slice a gash across Penny’s upper arm.

Weiss winced as more blows were traded and Penny landed a vicious kick on Ruby’s leg as she slipped past her guard. The fight was becoming more and more brutal as more blood was spilled, until Weiss could not take it anymore.

Striding out into the fray as the two women’s weapons locked and they tried to knock the other off-balance, Weiss drew her own sword, and with a flourish, knocked the interlocked weapons apart and stood in the middle of the fighters.

“Enough of this silliness! I will not have you two continue to fight over me like this!” She roared, glaring between her two foolish suitors.

“Does that mean you have chosen?” Ruby asked as she panted for breath.

“I chose a while ago, but you two were so caught up in your competition, you wouldn’t let me tell you.” Weiss told them with a scowl. “And my choice is that I refuse to choose, I wish to marry both of you.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then it was broken by Penny. “What?”

“I wish. To marry. Both of you. Together, at the same time.” Weiss explained with a long suffering sigh. “After Miss Rose told me of the legal loophole allowing for her to marry me, I looked further into certain intricacies and discovered that there was nothing disallowing the marriage of more than two partners. In fact, there are provisions for such an occurrence, though it hasn’t happened in a great many years.”

“So you’re going to marry me and her?” Ruby pointed between herself and Penny as Weiss nodded.

“That’s the plan, if you two can stand each other after spending the week competing.” Weiss smirked a little as the two women exchanged glances and shrugged, lowering their weapons.

“I suppose we could stand to do that.”

“Good. Now that that’s sorted, let’s get you two patched up and then we can announce the news to the court.” Weiss smiled and held out her hands to her now fiancées, which they took after putting away their weapons. It wasn’t perhaps the smoothest start, but Weiss was hopeful their reign would be a long and happy one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sort of genre isn't exactly my thing, but I gave it a good go and here's the result. I did quite enjoy writing Ruby and Penny fighting for Weiss' hand and affections, though, that was fun.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being super helpful with some of the details of this. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and supporting this endeavour.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	2. Soulmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny may have a soul, but she doesn't have a soulmate. In a world where finding your match is one of the most important things, it 's a lonely existence for her. Good thing she's got Ruby, for now at least.

Penny had accepted a long time ago that she didn’t have a soulmate, and in some ways it made life simpler. She didn’t have to worry about coming up with the most unique greeting like some people did, or deal with being unable to see certain colours or having to wear weirdly designed clothing to show off a soulmark.

Of course, she did still have to put up with everyone’s obsession with finding their soulmate. Life on Remnant was hard and often painfully short, so finding your soulmate was often people’s top priority, a narrative pushed by the media.

It was actually rather refreshing when she met Ruby. The young woman couldn’t care less about finding her soulmate, she was far more concerned with becoming a great huntress. She kept her soulmark hidden and was visibly uncomfortable whenever talk of soulmates came up.

It was a relief for Penny not being constantly reminded of her lack of a soulmate, and she found herself spending more and more time with Ruby. Of course, because the universe seemed determined to make Penny’s life harder, something happened. She fell in love with Ruby.

Thinking back, Penny realised it had been inevitable. All that time they’d spent together, working to better themselves and sticking by each other through thick and thin. Quite frankly, she should have seen it coming.

And, of course, with her feelings for Ruby, came a whole host of problems, not least of which being that Ruby already had a soulmate. She may not have been all that bothered about finding them, but Penny knew that somewhere out there was Ruby’s perfect match. That one person who complemented her, whose soul and aura existed to be her other half.

Penny couldn’t bear to take that away from Ruby, she loved the young huntress too much. She deserved better than the odd one out. Ruby deserved her soulmate, not the universe’s reject.

Of course, Penny’s resolve had lasted all of five seconds when, much to her surprise, Ruby had asked her out.

“But why? I’m not your soulmate.” Penny had said, utterly baffled by this development.

“But I like you. I don’t care about the whole soulmate thing.” Ruby explained patiently. “And I’m not planning on just waiting to run into someone fate or whatever says I’m supposed to when I like you and think we can be happy together.”

“But-”

“No buts. You like me, yes?” Penny nodded mutely. “Then it’s settled!” Ruby chirped and pulled Penny into a tight hug, which was returned a little reticently. As Ruby hummed happily, Penny couldn’t help but wonder if Ruby would be saying the same thing when she did meet her soulmate.

* * *

For a couple of blissful months, Penny was happy. She and Ruby were dating and nobody outside of their immediate friend group knew about their taboo relationship. Penny had the companionship she’d longed for, both romantic and platonic, and the only thing wrong was the other shoe that Penny knew was waiting to drop. And drop it did.

It was a day like any other when it happened. Penny had been practicing in the Beacon training room when a rather distraught Ruby came bursting in and flung herself into Penny’s arms.

“Ruby? What’s wrong?” Penny asked, letting her swords clatter to the ground as she returned the hug a little uncertainly.

“Nothing, everything, I don’t know.” Ruby wailed into Penny’s chest, and she patted the girl on the head in confusion.

“Can you explain it?” Ruby nodded a little and sniffled stepping back.

“I was just in the room doing some homework when Weiss came in wearing just a towel because she forgot to take her clothes with her.” Penny nodded slowly. She could understand why Ruby might be more than a little embarrassed but she didn’t understand why she was this upset about it. “I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Penny’s mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario and was ready to reassure Ruby it wasn’t cheating when she was interrupted.

“Her soulmark.” Ruby mumbled guiltily, twisting her foot on the ground.

“Oh, okay?” Penny blinked in confusion. Weiss was also something of an anomaly, she refused to let anyone even know what kind of soulmate identifier she had and would glare at anyone who even brought the topic up. “Did she get mad or something?”

“No, I wish she had.” Ruby scuffed her shoe against the ground, not meeting Penny’s eyes. “It… Itwasthesameasmine.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Penny tilted her head to better understand her girlfriend.

“Weiss’ soulmark, it’s the same as mine.” Ruby said a little slower, but no less tearfully and it felt as though the floor had dropped out from beneath Penny.

“Oh.” Penny didn’t know what to say, what could she say? “Um, okay.”

“Penny, are you okay?” Ruby reached out to take Penny’s hand, but she pulled away. “Penny?”

“I knew this would happen eventually.” She mumbled, drawing in on herself and clutching her arms. “I-I should go.” Penny turned and began marching for the door.

“Penny, wait!” Ruby chased after her and tried to grab for her again, but Penny dodged out of the way.

“No, Ruby, please.” Penny looked back over her shoulder at her soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend. “Just, let me go. Please.”

“Penny, you’re my girlfriend, we work together.”

“I was just keeping the spot warm for your soulmate, we both knew it.” Penny said sadly, already accepting her fate. “Weiss is a lucky girl.”

“Penny!” Ruby tried again, but the robotic redhead turned and ran from the room.

* * *

Penny spent the next few days avoiding Ruby and ignoring her calls. She even started getting calls from the rest of Ruby’s team and had to start avoiding them as well. This was for the best, a clean break, and then Ruby and Weiss could be together like they were supposed to be.

It was what fate had decided for them, after all, just as it had determined she would be alone.

She hadn’t realised it before, but with the increasing amount of time she’d spent with Ruby and her friends, Penny was now becoming aware of just how lonely her life was without them. She spent most of her time holed up in various hiding places, changing them each day to avoid Ruby as she and her team scoured the grounds looking for her.

Hopefully, they’d give up soon and realise it was for the best. What Penny hadn’t counted on, however, was the sheer determination and tenacity of one Weiss Schnee.

The day had started out normally enough, Penny was sneaking through one of the courtyards to find a new hidey hole when she was interrupted by a loud angry shout.

“Penny Polendina!” The girl in question froze, then turned slowly to see Weiss standing there in the middle of the courtyard, her finger pointed directly at her. “You shall answer for your crimes!” So Penny did the one logical thing when confronted with an angry heiress.

She ran.

“Get back here, you!” Weiss hollered, giving chase, surprisingly fast in her three-inch heels. Penny did her best to avoid and evade her pursuer, but Weiss was nothing if not persistent. Over hedges, across lawns, even out of windows, Penny tried to shake Weiss, but each attempt failed.

“Why are you chasing me?” Penny called over her shoulder as she ran towards the landing pads, perhaps if she could find a ship, she could escape.

“You made Ruby cry!” Weiss yelled after her, picking up the pace.

“It was for the better, she can be happy now!”

“She was happy with you, you complete dolt!” Weiss shrieked, starting to gain on Penny now that she wasn’t trying to evade her through more cunning means. The servos in Penny’s legs were screaming as she pushed them to their limits, but it wasn’t enough.

“Got you!” Weiss cried out in triumph as, with a great lunge, she caught Penny around the waist and sent them both tumbling to the ground. With a heave, Weiss turned Penny over so she was lying on her back before planting herself firmly on Penny’s lap. “Now, we are going to talk.”

“You don’t understand, this is for the best.” Penny tried to insist looking away and trying to find a way out of her predicament.

“Why, because Ruby and I are soulmates or some bullshit?” Penny froze then turned her head to stare up at Weiss.

“You know? Did Ruby tell you?”

“Weiss snorted in loud derision. “I’ve known since the first day at Beacon.” When Penny gave her a curious look, Weiss simply rolled her eyes. “She and Yang got into a fight the first night, her shirt rode up and I saw it.”

“But, if you’ve known all this time, how come you never told her?” Weiss gave Penny a withering look and folded her arms.

“I would have thought that by now you’d have realised I don’t like being told what to do. I have spent most of my life rebelling against the plans my father laid out for me. The only master of my fate is myself, so if the universe tells me I’m supposed to be with Ruby or whatever, I’m going to be damn sure it’s because  _ I  _ want to and not because it’s destiny or some crap like that.”

Weiss was breathing hard after her long rant and she slumped back to rest a little whilst Penny looked up at her curiously. “You really believe that?”

“I do, and Ruby does too, to some extent, at least. Why else would she still want you back?” Penny blinked, baffled by this.

“What?”

“She did tell me she found out we were soulmates and that it scared you off. Ruby’s not the sort to hold grudges, and neither am I when it comes to these sorts of things.” With a sigh, Weiss got up off Penny and offered her a hand.

“I haven’t ruined everything?” Penny asked as she was pulled to her feet.

“No, you’re good.” Weiss confirmed. “Now, let’s get you back to my dolt of a soulmate. Honestly, you’re both so daft sometimes, you definitely deserve each other.”

“What about you?” Penny asked and Weiss simply shrugged.

“I haven’t decided yet if I want to be with Ruby, and I’m going to wait for the whole soulmates thing between us to die down. I don’t want it to affect my decision.” Humming in understanding, Penny followed after Weiss, feeling just a little bit lighter. Maybe the universe hadn’t picked out a perfect match for her, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t pick out that perfect match for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the main reason why I shouldn't be allowed to write a soulmates AU in any serious capacity, otherwise I'm liable to come up with a crueller system than this one. Say for example, where your soulmate identifier is different to your soulmate's, you feel their pain whilst they have the first words you say to them on their arm, that sort of thing. Either way, I'm something of a fan of telling destiny to go stuff itself and I'm pretty sure that came across here.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and putting up with my neediness. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	3. Goddesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Manifestations of Death and Order have been together since the dawn of time, so why are they drawn to this newcomer to their realm?

“Weiss, you are literally the manifestation of order, how can you not know anything about her?” Ruby implored her beloved, who sighed deeply.

“Just because I keep the wheels of the universe turning in time doesn’t mean I know everything, Ruby, I have told you this a million times.” The two goddesses looked upon this newcomer the pantheon.

As the goddesses and manifestations of both death and order, Ruby and Weiss had been around since the dawn of time, becoming nigh on inseparable from the moment sentience came to them, and they had bestowed each other’s names upon them. It was the way of things, the order of the universe, that all things must die, so the two went hand in hand.

As time had passed and the universe had grown more and more complex, new gods had joined their ranks. Yang and Blake had been among the first, and much like Ruby and Weiss had found themselves drawn to one another despite being opposites. At first, the others were all manifestations of the deeper workings of the universe, but all that changed when life came into the picture.

In what felt like a blink of an eye, life’s children developed and advanced, gained sentience like the gods had and began creating their own. Where once there were only a few in the space the gods inhabited, soon it was flooded with these creations of life. Many of the manifestations looked down upon these new gods, seeing them as fleeting or sometimes even stealing some of their power by representing the same thing they did.

Weiss and Ruby did not disparage these new gods, Weiss understood they were simply another facet of the universe’s grand order that she enforced whilst Ruby was just that cheerful and welcoming. All were her children in the end, after all, even gods.

But this new god intrigued them both. They’d seen gods rise and fall, Ruby had personally escorted many to her embrace, but this one she only grew in power as time went on and lasted far longer than any of the other new gods.

“Weiss, she outlived an entire civilisation of gods. I’m telling you, there’s something different about this one.” Ruby insisted, still watching the new god. “Do you think perhaps she’s a, you know…?”

“There hasn’t been a new manifestation in ages, not since life appeared. All the inner workings of the universe have become manifest.”

“Look, I’m telling you, there’s something different about her.” Ruby insisted. “You don’t just outlast an entire civilisation without being something special.”

“Maybe she’s worshipped by a particularly long-lived civilisation.” Weiss suggested with a shrug. “You know I don’t really pay much attention to mortal affairs.” This was something Weiss was very well known for, she had far greater concerns than whatever life’s children were getting up to.

She had to ensure an entire universe continued to work according to the rules she’d laid out, constantly fend off chaos’ attempts to thwart her grand plans, and perhaps most importantly, stop Blake and Yang from mixing dark and light and ruining absolutely everything.

Ruby, on the other hand, preferred a more personal touch. After all, life’s children must die at some point, as Weiss had decreed when they first came about, and Ruby enjoyed taking the time to learn about them as she brought them into her embrace.

“Well, I don’t care what you think, I’m going to talk to her.” Ruby declared stubbornly before marching over to the newcomer.

“Ruby, wait!” Weiss hurried after her determined lover as she walked up to the new goddess and stuck out a hand as she’d seen mortals do.

“Hi! I’m Ruby, though you’ll probably know me better as death.” She chirped as the other goddess turned to face them. “What’s your name?”

“I… I don’t have one.” The goddess admitted, and Ruby gave Weiss a pointed look as she joined them. “I’ve been here for so long, but nobody else wants to talk to me.”

“She’s got no name, Weiss.” Ruby hissed to her beloved. “Gods are named by the mortals.”

“There have been gods without names.” Weiss tried to argue, but she knew it was rather flimsy. “The Nameless One, The Drowned Lord, She Who Shall not be Named.”

“Those are all still technically names.” Ruby pointed out firmly not paying attention to the newcomer’s curious looks. “The only ones who don’t have names are manifestations. We named each other, remember?”

“Yes, I remember.” Weiss sighed, she hated it when she was wrong. “So what shall we do with her?”

“Name her of course!” Ruby chirped and turned back to this new manifestation with a reassuring smile. “So, what name should you have…?”

“I don’t know. Do I need to have a name?”

“Well, we need to call you something.” Weiss said, rolling her eyes. “We can’t just keep calling you ‘newcomer’.”

“Oh, okay.” Ruby inspected this new manifestation, humming thoughtfully to herself.

“I know!” She announced once she was done. “Your name can be Penny!”

“Penny?” Penny tilted her head curiously.

“I’ve heard worse names.” Weiss shrugged, making a note of it in her tome. “Now we just need to figure out what you’re the manifestation of.”

“How do we do that?” Penny asked and Weiss sighed.

“I was hoping you’d be able to tell us. Manifestations tend to have an affinity for, well, what they manifest.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Penny apologised, and Ruby reached out to pat her reassuringly.

“Don’t worry about it, Weiss is just a bit of a meanie sometimes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use words I don’t understand.” Weiss shook her head in exasperation. “Well, if Penny here can’t tell us what she is the manifestation of, I’m not sure how we can find out.”

“I have an idea!” Ruby suddenly spoke up and Weiss had a bad feeling about this. “Let’s go on a field trip!”

“What.”

“Down to the mortal realms, whatever Penny has an affinity for is whatever she is manifesting.” Ruby explained with a smile.

“Please, no, I don’t like it down there. It’s all messy and disordered, like these mortals don’t appreciate my gifts.”

“It won’t be for very long, and it’s to help Penny.” Ruby wrapped an arm around the new manifestation. “You remember what it was like for us in the beginning, with no guidance, and we had to work it out for ourselves? Don’t you wish we had someone who could have guided us through that?”

“It would have been a lot easier.” Weiss admitted sullenly, disliking how easily her beloved could coerce her into doing what she wanted.

“Well, now we get to be that for Penny. So let’s go!” Ruby cheered and Weiss groaned, she was definitely going to regret this.

* * *

“So, Penny, how are you enjoying your first venture down into the mortal realms?” Ruby asked as the three goddesses walked down the street, drawing a few odd looks as they went. Weiss didn’t understand it, the last time she’d bothered to venture into the mortal realms, robes had been all the rage. Now everyone was wearing strange clothing, including Ruby and Penny, whom Ruby had insisted upon dressing.

Clothing wasn’t really a thing in their realm, they were unnecessary, especially since they didn’t have physical bodies there, and Weiss found them rather unnecessary down here too.

“It’s so strange and different.” Penny said, gawking at the buildings and passersby.

“Do you feel drawn to anything in particular?” Weiss asked impatiently, wanting to get this excursion over with so she and her beloved could return to where they belonged.

“I don’t know, it all feels so… I don’t know how to describe it.” Penny confessed sadly.

“It’s okay, Penny, we’re here to help you.” Ruby reached out and wrapped an arm around Penny. “And don’t mind Weiss, she just doesn’t like it when things don’t go according to plan.”

“Have you seen this place, Ruby?” Weiss snapped out, shuddering as she looked around the streets. “So disorganised, buildings that don’t match, streets with no ordering to them. It makes my skin crawl and I hate even having skin to begin with.”

“See what I mean?” Ruby giggled and Penny joined in.

“I actually love it here. I mean, just look at this!” Penny skipped over to a metal pole set in the pavement and gawked at it. “With this the mortals can extend their hours of productivity and not be limited by the dark!”

“It’s just a streetlight, Penny.” Ruby chuckled in amusement, shaking her head. “I do know that Blake’s not best fond of them, encroaching on her territory, she says, but we all know she’s just happy she and Yang can mingle more down here.”

“I wish those two wouldn’t.” Weiss grumbled as Penny continued to skip down the street. “I’ve got enough issues with keeping chaos to a minimum.”

“You love them, really, beloved.” Ruby teased, nudging up to Weiss. “Not as much as me though.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible for me to love anyone more than you, beloved.”

“Perhaps not, but perhaps you could love someone just as much.” Ruby suggested innocently and Weiss gave her a shrewd look.

“What are you getting at, Ruby?” Weiss then followed Ruby’s gaze to Penny, who was now busy staring at one of those rectangular devices these mortals used to display moving images. “Ruby, surely not.”

“Don’t you feel it?” Ruby looked at Weiss in genuine confusion. “That we found the piece we didn’t know was missing?”

“No, because there is nothing missing between us.” Weiss insisted stubbornly, watching as Penny found something new to look at. “You’re just interested in her because she’s the first new manifestation in however long it’s been.”

“It’s more than that, Weiss, it’s like how I feel with you. Like we fit together perfectly.”

“Ruby, you know that makes no sense, right?” Weiss said, not liking where this was going at all. “You and I belong together because we are intrinsically linked, death and order. Penny isn’t like that, Penny is just so different somehow.”

“Blake and Yang are complete opposites, but they make it work.” Ruby reached out to lay a hand on Weiss’ arm. “Just trust me, Weiss. When have I ever led you wrong?”

“That time you convinced me to give Nora a chance and it took me a millenia to get all the planets realigned.” Weiss deadpanned.

“Okay, that was one time, but I’ve got a good feeling about Penny.” Ruby smiled and walked over to Penny. “Have you found something yet?”

“Yes? No? Should I be feeling an affinity for literally everything around me?” Penny asked, deeply confused as she spun on the spot, trying to take it all in.

“That shouldn’t be happening.” Weiss frowned, joining them and looking around as well. “Surely there must be something.”

“I don’t know, it all feels just so amazing, all of it.” Wailing, Penny threw herself onto Ruby as Weiss tapped her chin in thought.

“Perhaps we are in the wrong environment. One second.” Weiss closed her eyes and then reopened them. The three immortals now stood in the middle of a desert. “Excellent, nothing around but sand, no distractions.”

“Nothing for her to feel affinity for.” Ruby pointed out, only for Weiss to smile smugly.

“Precisely, I have an idea for what our dear Penny is the manifestation of.” Weiss gestured around her. “Penny, do you feel anything here?”

“No… nothing, it feels empty, wrong.” Penny frowned, turning to Ruby. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Ruby gave Weiss a look as the manifestation of order smirked.

“I can’t just tell you everything, beloved, you need to work things out for yourself sometimes.” Weiss teased, enjoying being the one who got to tease. “Think, when did Penny join us?”

“After life, about the same time the gods began to appear.” Ruby said, sounding a little unsure.

“Therefore, according to the order of the universe and causality, it would stand that…?”

“If Penny is a manifestation, she would have appeared before life, unless life’s appearance had something to do with it.” Ruby smiled as she followed Weiss’ train of thought, and the manifestation of order nodded approvingly.

“Exactly. So when we were in that city, Penny found an affinity with everything but out here, there’s nothing for her. And you said you felt drawn to her...” Ruby’s face lit up in comprehension and she whirled to face Penny in excitement.

“We know what you’re the manifestation of!” She declared excitedly, reaching out and grabbing Penny’s hands.

“What?” Penny clearly hadn’t been following the discussion so Weiss filled her in.

“You feel an affinity for everything in the city because the mortals made it. You’re the manifestation of creation, Penny, of innovation and invention. The moment the first mortal created something, you were born.”

“But how?” Penny seemed utterly perplexed by this. “You predate life, how can you not have created anything?”

“We don’t create, we merely represent the underpinnings of the universe.”

“And that’s why you feel like my missing piece.” Ruby said with a bright smile. “You and I are opposites, after a fashion.”

“But wait, wouldn’t that be life?”

“You might think so, but that’s not true.” Weiss explained patiently. “Ruby just likes being called the manifestation of death. More technically, she’s the manifestation of endings.”

“Yeah, but that sounds boring, thus, manifestation of death, which is under my purview.”

“And as creation, you could technically be thought of as the manifestation of beginnings.” Penny still seemed to be rather confused by this whole thing.

“I’m not sure I understand. We’re opposites, why would I be your missing piece?”

“Same way Yang and Blake are with each other.” Ruby shrugged nonchalantly, still holding Penny’s hands. “They are bound to one another, just like Weiss and I are bound, and how I think you and I are.”

“Beloved, you’re flustering her.” Weiss reached out and laid a hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “Let her think.”

“You’re okay with this?” Penny asked Weiss, who tilted her head.

“Why shouldn’t I be? This is the way of things. And besides, the beloved of my beloved is a beloved of my own.” Weiss paused for a moment. “That didn’t make a lot of sense, did it?” Both Ruby and Penny shook their heads. “Balance is orderly, and it is the nature of order to decree that things that begin must surely end.”

“I still don’t understand.” Weiss shook her head in exasperation.

“Look , I’ll explain later. Now that we’ve determined what you are, we can leave this realm. Just feeling these chaotic patterns is giving me a headache.” And in the blink of an eye, the three immortals were gone. They had all the time in the universe to discuss what they were to each other, and they weren’t in any rush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will freely admit, this one I feel the least sure about. It was an interesting prompt and I tried to do my best with it but I'm afraid my GM worldbuilder side got the better of me. Either way, I do hope you all enjoyed it.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being hella cute. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being just the best.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	4. Modern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After failing her degree, Weiss has been cut off from her family and inheritance. With nowhere else to go, she has to turn to the last place she thought she'd get support. Her ex-girlfriend, Ruby.

Weiss had been standing outside the doorway for the last five minutes, sweating nervously. It wasn’t like her to be nervous, but she felt she had good reason to. She hadn’t seen Ruby in a few years, not since Weiss left for uni and had broken up with her. Weiss liked to say it was a mutual thing, that they both knew that their relationship wouldn’t survive the distance, but that wasn’t exactly true.

Weiss had hoped that it would be a clean break. She had only kept in contact with one of her old secondary school friends, Blake, and tried to move on with her life. She just needed to get her degree and father had guaranteed her a job at his company,even if it wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do.

That all came crashing down, however, when she failed her final year. Admittedly, she should have realised when she was struggling from the get go that she needed to get help, but she’d tried to push through. She was already getting more than enough financial support from her family. She shouldn’t have needed any more help.

Weiss had hoped her father might be at least a little sympathetic to her plight. Instead, he’d been furious, calling her a wasted investment, that he expected her to pay him back every penny he’d spent on putting her through university. After a few months of trying and failing to get a job outside of the Schnee Energy Company, her father’s patience ran out.

And so Weiss found herself both disinherited, without a home and with only a couple of hundred quid to her name. She’d crashed on Winter’s sofa for about a week as she desperately searched for something, anything that didn’t have her relying on the charity of yet another family member. She’d almost given up hope when, at last, something came through.

Blake had told her that she knew about a room that was going for pretty cheap since her girlfriend was moving in with her and the room she was vacating needed to be filled. Of course, Weiss had jumped at the opportunity before even thinking to ask a few basic questions, which was why she was now standing nervously outside her ex-girlfriend and now new flatmate’s place, trying to muster the courage to knock.

“Um, can I help you?” Weiss was startled by a lightly accented voice, and she looked around to see a young red-haired woman with a bright green eyes and an adorable smattering of freckles looking at her suspiciously. “You’ve been standing there for quite some time.”

“Oh, I’m, uh…” There really was no good explanation for what Weiss was doing there, and she flailed around for one, stepping back a little as the redhead grew increasingly suspicious.

“You have five seconds to tell me what you’re doing standing outside my flat or I’m calling security.” The young woman’s accent became more pronounced as she grew more irritable, and Weiss tried to process this. Ruby had another flatmate? Why hadn’t Blake mentioned this?

She was saved from answering, however, by the door opening and a head popping out and looking at the redhead. “Hey, Penny, what are you still doing out here?”

“There’s a weirdo who was just standing outside our door.” Penny pointed to Weiss. Ruby looked around at her and Weiss felt her heart skip a beat. Ruby had always been gorgeous, the prettiest girl in the entire school, in Weiss’ opinion, but she’d somehow gotten even more beautiful since then. She’d finally gone through with her plans of dyeing her hair and properly grown into her looks as she broke into a wide smile and stepped out into the corridor.

“Weiss, you’re here!” She stepped forward and pulled the surprised Weiss into a tight hug. “It’s been so long! Look at you!” She stepped back to properly look at Weiss whilst Penny watched on in confusion. “You’re still tiny!”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Weiss grumbled, rather bemused by this oddly friendly welcome. Last time she’d seen Ruby, the girl had been in tears, as had Weiss before she stepped out of the younger girl’s life for what she thought would be forever.

“Wait, this is Weiss?” Penny asked, stepping forwards to join the conversation.

“Yep!” Ruby chirped, already reaching down for one of Weiss’ suitcases. “Come on, we don’t want to be hanging around out here.” Without waiting for Weiss to answer, Ruby grabbed the handle of the suitcase and marched into the flat. After a moment’s hesitation, Weiss grabbed the rest of her bags and filed into the room after Ruby.

She’d honestly expected a far more frosty reception, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it came with a familiar stirring in the pit of her stomach that she was definitely going to ignore. Penny followed her into the flat and closed the door behind them, setting down a messenger bag beside the door and dropping some keys in the bowl.

The flat was fairly small but scrupulously clean, the kitchen and living room separated by a counter, and there was a hallway leading to a few more doors. Ruby dropped the suitcase by the sofa and turned to face Weiss with a smile. “Welcome to Casa Rose-Polendina!”

“It’s nice.” Weiss took in her new surroundings, taking in the various little touches like the pictures on the walls and the small collection of potted plants by the window. “Cosy.”

“You can just say small y’know.” Ruby snickered, wandering into the kitchen and turning the kettle on. “You want some tea?”

“Yes, please. No milk, five sugars.” She replied, setting down her other things as Ruby busied herself with a few mismatched mugs. Penny in turn wandered over to the counter and opened up a laptop that was sitting there.

“How was your walk?” Ruby asked Penny who shrugged noncommittally.

“It was fine, just a normal sort of walk. Oh! I did get to pet a really cute puppy. Here!” Penny fished around in her dress pocket, pulled out her phone and flipped through it before eagerly showing it to Ruby, who looked at it and squealed in delight.

“Oh my god, he’s so cuuuuuuuute!” She gushed, clasping her hands as she looked at the picture. If Weiss had had any doubts that this oddly wasn’t the girl she’d fallen in love with years ago, that action dispelled any lingering doubts. Ruby adored precious pups, cute cats and any kind of small furry animal, and seeing her cooing over the picture brought Weiss back.

“Do you want to see?” Penny asked, swivelling around to face Weiss and holding out her phone. She too seemed to be oddly friendly, and Weiss wondered just how much she knew about her and Ruby’s mutual past together. Nodding, Weiss walked over to look at the picture. It was indeed an adorable pit bull, his tongue lolling out as he smiled up at the camera.

“Oh, he’s so precious!” Weiss cooed, wishing she’d been there to pet the adorable dog. It was very petty, but one of the things Weiss had missed most about breaking up with Ruby and moving away was that she no longer had unlimited access to Zwei during the school holidays.

“How is Zwei? Is he here?” Weiss asked, and Ruby blinked in confusion for a moment.

“Oh, no…” Ruby frowned and Weiss’ heart dropped. It must have shown on her face as Ruby hastily waved her hands in a frantic panic. “No no no, he’s not dead or anything! He’s just not living here with us.”

“Oh, thank god.” Weiss breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess he’s still living with Taiyang, then?”

“Yeah, he’s getting kind of old now. I’d have loved to bring him here, but there’s rules about pets, and I don’t really want to take him away from dad now that Yang and I are moved out.” Ruby smiled, then turned away to deal with the kettle as Penny put away her phone.

“So, what are your plans, Weiss?” She asked, returning most of her attention to her laptop and typing away at something.

“I need to sign on at the local jobcentre. If I can’t find any work, I’m going to need to get on benefits.” Weiss sighed. The tragic reality of having no meaningful qualifications stung her once more. Nobody cared that she had very good A-Levels or that she had various other good extracurriculars, the lack of a degree hung heavy around her neck.

“I’m sure you’ll find something soon, Weiss.” Ruby reassured Weiss, setting down a mug of tea in front of her. “If you need help sprucing up your CV or whatever, Penny and I can help.”

“Yeah, we’ve got plenty of practice.” Penny said with a smile. “We’ve had to make quite a few in the past.”

“What are you doing now, Ruby? Blake didn’t mention.” Weiss asked, blowing gently on her tea to cool it.

“Oh, I’m on an apprenticeship, software development.” Ruby said with a smile as she sipped at her own drink. “It’s how I met Penny.”

“Oh?” Weiss raised an eyebrow, looking to Penny, who’d taken her own steaming mug but continued to type with one hand.

“Infrastructure technician. We both work at the same company.” Penny explained, not looking up from the computer. “If you want, maybe we could put in a good word for you. I mean, we are only apprentices, but every little helps, right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Weiss covered her confusion by taking a gulp of tea, even though it was still too hot and scalded her throat. She had absolutely no idea what to make of this. She’d come here expecting Ruby to only begrudgingly open her home up to her at Blake’s request. Instead, it was like she’d stepped back in time to when they were teens, before she was a failure and a burnout.

It was too much for her, and she set down her mug forcefully. “I should go unpack my things.” She said abruptly, and Ruby and Penny exchanged glances.

“Sure, it’s the second door on the right. Bathroom’s at the end of the hallway.” Ruby told her, and Weiss nodded her thanks, walking over to her things and gathering them up. Before she left the communal area, Ruby called out to her. “It is good to see you again, Weiss.”

“It’s good to see you too, Ruby.” Weiss flashed her a wan smile before retreating to her new room. Thankfully, the room was furnished if a little bare. Blake’s girlfriend had done a good job of cleaning up after themselves before they left.

Sighing deeply, Weiss set down her suitcase and opened it to begin unpacking her meager possessions. Her father had only given her half an hour to pack up before he would forcibly eject her from the manor, and she could only carry so much stuff. It didn’t take her long to put her clothes away in the dresser, though she wasn’t entirely sure why she was bothering, knowing that they’d probably end up living on the floor like they had when she’d been at uni.

The desk remained incredibly sparse, only having her laptop and a couple of notebooks on it. Weiss thought she had everything unpacked when she noticed something lying at the bottom of the suitcase. Reaching in, Weiss picked up and realised what it was. She’d forgotten she’d even packed it.

The only memento she’d kept from her time with Ruby, a photo they’d taken the day she, Blake and Ruby’s older sister Yang had graduated from Beacon. The three of them and Ruby had gone out to the nearby town to celebrate, and spent most of the evening smuggling drinks to the still-underage Ruby.

The picture was of all four of them crammed into a tiny booth, looking very sloppy and drunk and clearly having the time of their lives. Ruby and Weiss were pressed up against one another and Ruby had several very clear lipstick marks on her cheeks that matched Weiss’ shade.

Weiss could still remember how the night had ended, with Yang doubled up over a toilet whilst Weiss had snuck Ruby into her own room. She could also remember how the next day had gone, since that was when she’d broken up with Ruby.

Definitely not one of Weiss’ prouder moments, and it had haunted her ever since.

With a wry and regretful smile, Weiss placed the photo on the desk and flopped back onto her unmade bed. “So much for a clean break.” She mumbled to herself, staring up at the ceiling. Of all the places she thought she’d end up, this hadn’t even been on the list.

She’d thought she was leaving Vale for good all those years ago, but here she was. Weiss laid there for a little longer before tiring of just staring and doing nothing. Getting back to her feet, Weiss decided she might as well put her toiletries in the bathroom, and so she grabbed her meagre supplies and left the room.

As she was about to walk towards the bathroom, she heard Ruby and Penny talking from the living room. She knew it was rude to eavesdrop, but when she heard her name mentioned, she had to know what they were saying.

“I’ll be fine, Pen, it was years ago.” Peeking around the corner, Weiss saw Ruby and Penny still sitting at the counter. “I’ve been over her for ages.”

“If you say so…” Penny sounded sceptical and she leaned forward. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“I know, babe, and I appreciate the thought, but Weiss is just a friend I’m helping out.” Weiss could hear the smile in Ruby’s voice and how she referred to Penny as babe. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later as Ruby leaned forward to press a kiss to Penny’s lips. “Besides, I’ve got something far sweeter here.”

Weiss was over Ruby. Had been over her for years now. It had been her idea to break it off, she should be fine, so why did it feel like her heart had been shattered into a million pieces? As quietly as she could, Weiss slipped away down the corridor and into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Dropping her things to the side, Weiss dropped heavily onto the toilet and buried her face in her hands. She shouldn’t be feeling like this, like her stomach was twisting in knots and her heart had been torn from her chest. She’d already gone through that when she and Ruby had first broken up. She should have known Ruby would have moved on by now. She was brilliant, beautiful and the best thing that had ever happened to Weiss.

She wasn’t over Ruby, was she? The realisation hit Weiss like a truck, and the tears that had been welling up in her eyes spilled out. She wasn’t over Ruby, and now she had to share a flat with her and her new girlfriend. There were several days that Weiss had thought were the worst of her life. The day she dumped Ruby, the day she found out she’d failed her degree, the day she was kicked out of her home.

Today topped all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I might have lied before, this one might be the angstiest. I wanted to experiment with different dynamics for Frosen Steel thus, ex-girlfriends Weiss and Ruby. A lot of these stories ended up being them either getting together or an established relationship, so this made for a nice shake up.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being super supportive.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	5. Mechanics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Weiss' car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, she thought it was possibly the worst bit of luck she'd ever had happen to her. Good thing the next town over has a couple of very capable mechanics to help her out of her bind.

“Fucking ass, piece of shit, good for nothing heap of junk!” Weiss’ torrent of curses was punctuated by several swift kicks that left her hopping in pain and swearing even more. Her father would have scrubbed her mouth out with soap if he’d heard her use such language, before firing whoever had taught her such foul words.

Gingerly setting her injured foot on the ground, Weiss glared at her ominously smoking broken-down car before looking up and down the road.

Nothing.

Groaning in dejection, Weiss opened up the passenger door and grabbed her phone from the seat, muttering to herself as she did so.

“Come out to visit me and Robyn, Weiss, it’ll be good to see you again. Oh no, don’t bother flying, it’ll be a better experience for you to drive and see the country.” She imitated Winter’s tone as mockingly as she could as she turned on the phone and tried to pull up her browser.

“No no no!” She shrieked as the little sad-faced page popped up and informed her a connection could not be established. Sure enough, she had no signal, absolutely none. It took a lot of will power for Weiss to not scream in frustration and hurl her phone into the cornfields that lined the road.

Breathing hard and trying to remember her therapist’s advice on calming down, Weiss reached into the car and grabbed a few things. Her car may be stranded, but she was not just going to sit here on the off-chance someone drove by.

Collecting together the few things she wasn’t willing to leave unattended in her car, Weiss locked the broken down vehicle and started out along the road, grateful for the small mercy that she was wearing flats rather than her usual three-inch heels.

She knew there was supposed to be a town ahead, though she couldn’t remember how far it was supposed to be, only that it was closer than where she’d come from. Weiss had no idea why her sister thought it would be a good idea for her to ‘see the country’. There was nothing to see, nothing but endless fields and small towns.

Weiss, quite frankly, had no interest in the world’s largest ball of twine or whatever random tourist attractions the midwest had to offer. She liked her metropolitan life in the various big cities she had to fly to on business. The hustle and bustle was comforting, as was the constant background noise. She’d found it almost impossible to sleep in the various motels she’d been staying at, it was all too quiet.

Suffice to say, once she got to San Francisco, she was ditching this car and flying back home instead of driving. It was only a rental, and she was fairly sure they’d have a branch there, though she would be complaining about it. She’d gotten the most expensive and ostensibly reliable vehicle in their fleet, and yet here she was, walking along a road in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, USA, and to cap it all off, her foot was starting to throb where she’d kicked the car.

Checking the time, Weiss was horrified to find that she’d only been walking for ten minutes and she was already considering just lying down in the middle of the road and waiting for the vultures. There were probably vultures around here, or coyotes. Weiss wasn’t exactly an expert on the local fauna, nor did she really care.

So she kept walking and walking and walking, she stopped bothering to look at how long she’d been walking after the first hour. The sun beat down on her, and Weiss was sure that by the time she reached some kind of civilisation, she’d be so sunburnt she’d be unrecognisable.

All she knew was that she had to keep walking and praying that she’d find something, but the most she found was a break in the endless fields of corn by a field full of cows. Weiss was just about ready to give up when she heard the faint sound of an engine rumbling.

Salvation.

Wild-eyed and desperate, Weiss looked around and saw from the way she’d come, a vehicle in the distance. Flailing her arms, Weiss all but ran into the road, trying to flag down the car and praying they’d both stop for her and that it wasn’t driven by a creepy old man.

Weiss began thanking her lucky stars as the truck began to slow down and came to a halt in front of her. “Thank you thank you thank you.” She babbled out, running over to the driver’s side.

“I’m guessing that’s your car pulled over back there.” The driver was a tall muscular redhead with a bright smile and a cowboy hat. In her exercise-addled mindset, it took Weiss a surprising amount of effort not to start drooling over the woman’s biceps. 

“Yes, engine trouble, I think, smoke coming out from under the hood probably isn’t a good thing.” The woman shook her head with a chuckle.

“No, it certainly ain’t. You need a lift into town?”

“Yes, please.” Weiss nearly sobbed in relief as she walked around the side of the truck and climbed in the passenger side. “Thank you so, so much.”

“Ain’t no problem, miss.” The redhead smiled and held out a hand to Weiss. “Name’s Pyrrha.”

“Weiss.” She took the proffered hand and shook it delicately, marvelling at how strong Pyrrha’s grip was. “Please tell me there’s a garage in this next town over.”

“Yep, just the one though, but I’m guessing you ain’t exactly gonna be picky.” Pyrrha chuckled again, putting her truck in gear and pulling away. “I suppose you ain’t from around here.”

“However did you guess?” Weiss smirked wryly, feeling more at ease now that she was in a vehicle. “I’m visiting my sister in California and she insisted that I roadtrip out to see her rather than fly.”

“Yeah, that tends to be how we get most outsiders comin’ through here.” Pyrrha said as she refocused on the road.

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Weiss muttered before realising how rude she was being. “Sorry, no offence.”

“None taken.” Pyrrha smiled easily, adjusting her hat. “I know living out here ain’t for everyone, even some of the folks who already live out here. I like it though.”

“What is it you do out here?” Weiss asked curiously, staring out of the window at the endless cornfields.

“Oh, my husband runs his family’s farm. It’s not much, but we manage.” Weiss hummed in acknowledgement before continuing to stare out of the window, feeling a little guilty for lusting over a married woman. “So what do you do, then, Weiss?”

“I’m in forensic accounting. I audit finances, check for fraud, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds awfully fancy.” Weiss cast a look over at her driver with a raised eyebrow.

“It really isn’t, mostly just looking at numbers all day. Most of the time if there is a discrepancy, it’s just some intern who accidentally mistyped something.” Weiss did genuinely enjoy her job, she was good at it, and being raised by one of the biggest corporate crooks in America had instilled in Weiss a strong sense of morality and ethics, much to her father’s dismay.

“Well, I’m sure it’s fancier than anything we’ve got out here.” Pyrrha chuckled again. “Not many people left out here in Patch.”

“How come?”

“No enough work around. The town’s mostly here supply the farms in the county, and it’s been haemorrhaging residents for years now. Only people left are the ones who can’t afford to leave, or don’t want to leave.” Pyrrha explained with a sigh.

“Do you want to? Leave that is.”

“No, I like it out here. I can’t really imagine leaving, and me and my husband have a good life out here, unlike some of the folks in town.” Weiss hummed again and looked back out of the window. They sat in silence for a while before Weiss felt awkward enough to restart the conversation.

“So, you know why I was driving along in the middle of nowhere. How come you’re out saving stranded city girls like me?” Pyrrha let out a snort at Weiss’ description of herself.

“I’m picking up some supplies in town, so I can drop you off at the garage before I run my errands and head back to the farm.”

“I appreciate it. I’ve got money if-”

“Don’t sweat it, I’m just giving you a lift. Save your money for getting your car fixed.”

“Not actually, my car and believe me, I’ll be having words with the rental company.” Weiss grumbled, eliciting an amused chortle from Pyrrha as they sped along the road.

* * *

It took them another hour of driving and small talk before they reached the town, and Weiss was now incredibly grateful Pyrrha had come along when she had. The truck rolled to a halt outside a garage with a sign that proclaimed it belonged to someone named Taiyang. Weiss was a little surprised by this. Perhaps it was an unfair stereotype, but she’d expected a small town like this to be, well, painfully white, much like herself.

“Well, here we are. Nice talking to ya, Weiss.” Pyrrha said as Weiss opened up the door and got ready to hop out.

“It was good talking to you too, Pyrrha, and thank you again for the lift.” Weiss smiled graciously as she climbed out and closed the door.

“It was no problem, you take care now.” With a tip of her hat, Pyrrha put her truck in gear and pulled away, leaving Weiss to enter the garage. She could hear faint strains of heavy metal from farther inside as well as the sounds of power tools.

“Hello?” She called out warily, and the music and tools cut off abruptly.

“Be with you in a sec.” A high piping voice called out, and Weiss waited patiently, looking around idly at all the mechanical things that she had no understanding of whatsoever. A couple of minutes passed and she heard a few loud crashes from the back of the garage before someone came stumbling into view. “Hi, can I help you with something?”

“Yes, my ca-” Weiss turned to face the mechanic and her voice trailed off as she saw her. Weiss knew it was a woman from the pitch of the voice, but she hadn’t expected her to be hot. A set of coveralls tied at the waist to expose a grease stained tanktop and an absolutely stunning set of muscles covered in sweat and oil, whilst her short dyed hair stuck up everywhere.

If Weiss hadn’t known she was gay before, this cleared up any doubts. God, she wanted to lick those gorgeous arms and taste the sweat on them.

“Um, Miss?” Weiss was shaken out of her muscle-induced fantasy by the woman looking at her curiously. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, sorry, it’s been a long day.” Weiss forced herself to tear her eyes away from the mechanic’s broad shoulders. “My car broke down several miles back.”

“And you walked all the way here?” The mechanic asked incredulously, looking Weiss over.

“No, I managed to hitch a lift.” Weiss said with a shake of her head. “Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to fix it.”

“Probably, we’re pretty good at fixing cars around here. Thing is, it’s getting pretty late today, and do you know how far out it is?”

“A couple of hours, at least, I’m not quite sure.” Weiss confessed in embarrassment as the woman smiled reassuringly.

“That’s no problem. If you’re not in a huge hurry, we can get the truck out to bring it here in the morning and get it fixed up then.” The mechanic suggested, and Weiss sighed quietly.

“I guess I’m stuck here for the night.” She shook her head, trying to ignore the voice in her head that suggested she take advantage of this unexpected layover by admiring the view in front of her. “I don’t suppose you could point me in the direction of a motel could you?”

“Ah.” The mechanic looked rather sheepish at the mention of a motel. “There might be a bit of a snag there. Y’see, we did have one, but it closed down a few months back. Not enough people were coming through town.”

“Great, just great.” Weiss groaned. She thought that her luck had been on an upswing with Pyrrha giving her a lift and then meeting this gorgeous specimen of feminine strength. “So what do you suggest I do?”

“Well, I’ve got a spare room, since my sister moved out a while back.” Weiss paused in her cursing of her luck and promptly revised her opinion on it.

“Are you sure?” Weiss asked, trying not to sound too eager at the prospect.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” The mechanic reassured her.

“Well, if you say so…” Weiss had to hold back a manic grin as she held out a hand. “I’m Weiss. You probably want to know the name of someone if she’s staying with you.”

The mechanic took the hand, and the strong warm grip was almost enough to distract her from the fact that it was covered in engine oil. “Ruby Rose, pleasure to meet you.” Weiss tried to subtly wipe her hand off when it was released, but Ruby noticed and grabbed a rag from a nearby table.

“Crap, I am so sorry!” She apologised, handing the cloth to Weiss for her to wipe off the worst of the grease. “You kinda get used to all the grease working on engines and you kinda forget it’s there.”

“It’s alright.” Weiss finished wiping off her hand and passed back the rag. “Would you mind showing me where I’m crashing? I had a rather tiring walk.”

“Sure, no prob, one sec.” Ruby wiped off her own hands on the rag and hollered into the back of the garage. “Hey, Penny!”

“What?” Came the reply, and a grease smudged face popped out from a doorway.

“I’m just ducking out for a few. Weiss here’s stranded, so I’m letting her crash in Yang’s old room.” The other woman emerged from the room, wiping her own hands off, and Weiss had to hastily wipe her chin to make sure there was no drool there as she looked at Penny.

Penny was quite a bit shorter than Ruby, probably about the same height as Weiss, except unlike her slender frame, Penny was just as broad and muscular as Ruby. Weiss felt just a little weak at the knees as several fantasies played out in her mind.

“So you’re just leaving me to fix up the Branwens’ truck all by myself?” Penny asked with a frown, folding her arms and making Weiss feel even more faint as her biceps bulged just a little.

“I’m just gonna show her where she’s staying, I’ll be right back, babe.” Weiss blinked, nonplussed. Had Ruby just called Penny babe?

“Alright, fine, but don’t take too long.” Penny grumbled, walking over to Ruby and pressing a small kiss to her cheek. Weiss felt her heart sink in disappointment but she plastered a happy smile on her face as Ruby turned back to Weiss and gestured for her to follow.

Weiss followed Ruby out of the garage, swallowing down her dismay as they walked along the dusty road. “So, what are you doing all the way out here? No offense, but you way too much like a city girl to be out in Patch.”

“I’m driving out to see my sister and her girlfriend in San Francisco.” She carefully emphasised the part about Winter’s girlfriend, just in case Ruby had seen any flickers of unhappiness earlier and put it down to homophobia. “She thought it would be a good idea for me to see the country rather than fly.”

“Well, I’m not sure what she thought there was for you to see out here, except for corn and the occasional cow.” Ruby snorted, shaking her head. “So what’s it like out in California? Assuming you’ve been before, that is.”

“It’s good, I like it, not that I’ve been many times, and most of it was for work.” Weiss confessed, she was something of a workaholic at times, spending most of her time in the office.

“I’d love to go sometime. I’ve never even been out of the county.” Ruby frowned with a sigh.

“Do you not like it here?” Weiss asked tentatively, remembering what Pyrrha had said about people leaving the town.

“I like it fine, I guess.” Shrugging, Ruby looked down at Weiss with a small frown. “Just feels like there’s more to life than just staying in the same town fixing cars.”

“Why not leave then? Pack up and go.”

Shaking her head, Ruby looked away, her gaze fixing on the horizon. “I couldn’t do that. The town needs me and Penny. We’ve got responsibilities here.”

The two fell silent as Ruby led the way along the deserted mainstreet, then off a side road and towards a well kept but still rather worn house. Ruby led the way up the steps and through the front door, calling out as she went in. “Dad? You in here?”

“Out back, sweetheart!” The reply came and Ruby walked down the corridor, through the kitchen and out the backdoor, with Weiss following dutifully. Sitting on the back porch in a rocking chair was an older Asian man, probably in his forties, with a dog slumbering at his feet. “Hey, kiddo. Whatcha doing back here so early?”

He leaned forward and caught sight of Weiss hovering awkwardly behind Ruby, and a cheeky grin grew on his face. “Ohoho, I see, sneaking out early on Penny, are we? I thought the two of you stopped doing that after you broke up with that Emerald girl.”

“No, dad!” Ruby blushed bright red, flashing a quick glance at Weiss. “And I told you not to bring that up in front of strangers.”

“Sorry, sorry, just thought you liked to take pride in yourself.” Ruby’s father grumbled. “So who is she, then?”

“This is Weiss, her car broke down quite a ways out on the road. I told her she could crash in Yang’s old room since we can’t get her car back today.” Ruby explained, glaring at her father a little.

“Oh, alright, and I’m sure that was the only reason you wanted her to crash here.”

“What?” Weiss asked, not entirely following what was going on between the father and daughter.

“Dad!”

“Alright, I’ll shut up.” Ruby’s father raised his hands in surrender, and Ruby hustled Weiss away back into the house.

“I am so sorry about him.” Ruby apologised profusely as she led Weiss up the stairs and to a closed door with a sign taped to it declaring it to be Yang’s room. “He likes to try to embarrass me.”

“What was he talking about?” Weiss asked, still not quite sure what had happened.

“It doesn’t matter.” Ruby told her firmly, opening the door to the room and showing her inside. The room itself was bare save for a couple of cardboard boxes sitting in a corner. “Here ya go. Sorry there’s not much, but Yang took pretty much everything she could with her when she and Blake moved out of town.”

“Your sister got to leave, but you have to stay?” Weiss raised an eyebrow and Ruby shrugged.

“She was always too big for Patch, her leaving was a foregone conclusion.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Ruby waved off Weiss’ apology.

“It’s fine, really.” She sighed a little. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. I need to get back to the shop or Penny will be mad.”

“Thank you for your help.” Weiss called after Ruby as she left the room and started down the stairs.

“Don’t thank me just yet, I haven’t fixed your car, save it for after that.” And Ruby vanished out of sight, leaving Weiss in the room, silently cursing the fact that she was now hopelessly infatuated with the mechanic.

* * *

The rest of the day crawled by. Weiss still had no signal, so all she could do was read and reread the one book she’d brought with her to pass the time. Ruby returned a couple of hours later, bearing dinner from the local diner, one of the few businesses in town still left open. They’d conversed politely over dinner along with Ruby’s father, but there was no mention of what he’d been talking about earlier when Weiss had first arrived.

Weiss went to sleep early that night and spent most of it tortured by tantalising dreams of sweat-sheened muscles, insistent kisses and gentle licks. It took a lot of effort for Weiss not to blush when she first saw Ruby the next morning, the mechanic wearing a different tank top and a tiny pair of shorts.

“So, Penny can take you and the truck out this morning to pick up your car and tow it back so we can take a proper look at it.” Ruby told her, seemingly oblivious as to what her state of dress was doing to Weiss.

“Sounds great!” Weiss said in a strangled voice as Ruby turned to walk away and gave Weiss a very pleasant view as she wandered back into her room. Weiss proceeded to spend quite a bit longer than necessary in the bathroom, taking a long cold shower whilst berating herself for her thirst.

Once Weiss was sufficiently cooled off and dressed, Ruby led the way back to the garage, where Penny waited outside, leaning up against a tow truck. Just like that, Weiss’ thirst came rushing back at the sight of the other woman, and she wondered if tank tops were a part of some uniform for the mechanics.

“Salutations, Weiss! Shall we go get your car, then?” Penny said, straight to business, opening up the door to the cab, and she was about to climb in when Ruby caught her by wrist, pouting up at her.

“Don’t I at least get a good morning kiss?” She asked plaintively, and Penny rolled her eyes in amusement, leaning down to give Ruby a quick peck.

“There, happy now?”

“Very.” Ruby chirped before strolling off into the garage. “I’ll finish off the work on the Branwen truck whilst you’re gone.”

“Sure. I don’t think we’ll be too long, or at least I hope not.” Penny climbed behind the wheel and started up the engine. “Come on, then, Weiss. Let’s go.”

Jogging around to the other side of the truck, Weiss scrambled into the passenger side and Penny put it in gear and pulled off down the road towards where Weiss’ car had been left.

They rode in silence for most of the way, Penny didn’t seem to be particularly talkative and Weiss was afraid of opening her mouth, lest she say something deeply embarrassing.

“So, road tripping, huh?” Penny broke the silence, surprising Weiss.

“Yeah, I guess Ruby told you.”

“She did.” Penny confirmed with a small grin. “How are you enjoying it? Other than your car breaking down.”

“It’s been alright I guess.” Weiss shrugged noncommittally. “There doesn’t seem to be much to do or see out here though.” She didn’t mention how the best things she’d seen so far on this road trip were Penny and Ruby.

“There’s plenty out here to see, though it does get a little dull when it’s all you’ve known.”

“You’ve lived in Patch all your life, then?” Weiss asked curiously.

“Yep, born and raised, farthest I’ve gone is the next town over.” Penny confirmed with an odd smile. “It’d be nice to be able to do something like you’re doing, get out and see the country.”

“You don’t want to stay in Patch then?” Weiss surmised and Penny shrugged.

“I go where Ruby goes and she’s staying in Patch for the time being.” Nodding, Weiss fell silent for a bit, turning things over in her head.

“I don’t think I’d be able to do it.” She said, earning a curious look from Penny. “Stick around a small town like this for my whole life. I’m a city girl at heart, the hustle and bustle and all the people and things. That’s far more my speed.”

“That does sound pretty good.” Penny admitted, her odd smile still in place. “But…”

“But Ruby feels she has to stay in Patch.” Weiss finished, and Penny nodded.

“We were going to leave with Emerald, but then Ruby ended up taking over the garage from Tai and Emerald didn’t feel like sticking around anymore.”

“Who’s Emerald?” Weiss asked curiously, remembering Ruby’s father mentioning the name the day before.

“She was mine and Ruby’s girlfriend.” Penny caught a glimpse of the expression on Weiss’ face and giggled a little. “Don’t look so shocked, I thought you realised Ruby and I are dating.”

“I did, but…” Weiss struggled for the right words. “I didn’t really expect a small town in the middle of nowhere to be quite so…”

“Queer?” Penny continued to giggle. “Yeah, you city folks do like to think the country’s all backwards, don’t ya? Full of racist and homophobic rednecks.” Weiss nodded mutely in embarrassment. “Well, there’s more to life out here. Not much, I’ll grant, you’ve seen the state of Patch, but certainly far more than just a bunch of hicks. You should see what they get up to out on the Arc farm.”

Blushing furiously, Weiss looked away and out the window as she thought over this new information. Part of her was incredibly pleased to learn that Penny and Ruby had previously had another girlfriend, since it meant she perhaps had a chance. Ruby’s father’s words from yesterday made a lot more sense now too.

However, a much larger and more sensible part of her reminded Weiss that she wasn’t staying for very long, and there was no way she could stick around with Penny and Ruby. Though the couple did want to leave Patch, Weiss doubted they were ready to up stakes and leave just because some random woman who thought they were unfairly hot asked them to.

With a deep sigh, Weiss kept gazing out at the passing fields and wondered what, if anything, she should do or say.

They drove several for a couple of hours before they finally reached Weiss’ broken down car, still sitting on the side of the road. With a quick efficiency, Penny hopped out, taking the key from Weiss, and popped the hood to take a look at it.

“This is definitely a job for the shop. Let me hitch her up and we can get her back for a proper look.” Penny called out to Weiss, who nodded and stayed seated, watching the corn sway in the light breeze as Penny hitched up her car and clambered back into the truck.

After a few minutes of driving in silence, Penny broke it with a chipper and smug question. “So you like buff girls, then?”

Weiss choked on nothing and flailed around for a response. “What makes you think that?!”

“You really aren’t that subtle, Weiss, I’ve seen you staring at me and my girlfriend.”

“Oh my God, I am so sorry.” Weiss apologised, realising there was no way out of this. “I’ve offended you and was creeping on your girlfriend and-.”

“You’re fine.” Penny interrupted her with a small giggle. “I’m flattered, and I know Ruby would be as well.” Weiss didn’t answer, and instead sank down into her seat and tried her best to vanish into the cracked leather.

“Just kill me now.” Weiss whined, the blood still rushing to her cheeks.

“If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one who’s been admiring the view.” Weiss looked over at Penny to see her grinning back at her and she felt herself flush even more.

“What?” She squeaked, and Penny laughed.

“You probably already know this, but you’re very hot, Weiss. Ruby told me as much yesterday when she got back to the garage.” Weiss didn’t know what to say to this, so she settled for continuing to flush furiously as she curled up in her seat.

“Thank you.” She eventually was able to mumble bashfully. “Not that anything’s going to come of this though.” Weiss said sadly. It was just her luck, two hot buff ladies who were also interested in her, and they just had to live in the middle of nowhere. Weiss liked Ruby and Penny well enough and thought they were unfairly hot, but there was no way she was just going to abandon her job and life just to move out to a dying town.

“Yeah…” Penny sighed morosely, and Weiss heard her shifting in her seat as she kept her eyes firmly on the road.

“Honestly, I would love to see if there was something between us, more than me just lusting after the two of you that is. But I can’t stay.”

“I know.” Penny sounded very disappointed by this, and her hands shifted uncomfortably on the steering wheel.

“I mean, there is a way…”

“But Ruby thinks she has to stay here.” Penny finished the sentence with another deep sigh. “Even though she wants to leave as well.”

“Maybe we could convince her…?”

“No offence, Weiss, but Em and I weren’t able to convince her back then, so I doubt we’d be able to now.”

“I guess you’re right.” Weiss rested her chin on her hand and looked out of the window. “If… if you do manage to persuade her, will you give me a call?”

“Yeah, sure.” Penny rummaged around in the glove compartment for a piece of paper which Weiss jotted her number down on.

Regretfully, Weiss handed over the paper for Penny to tuck into her pocket. This wasn’t exactly what she wanted as an outcome, but she was cautiously optimistic. One thing she did have to do once she got to San Francisco was thank Winter for suggesting the road trip. There certainly had been some things worth seeing in the country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don't actually know a great deal about the US, the mid-west in particular, but I gave it my best shot from various accounts from various friends. This also ended up quite a bit longer than I expected, but I think that lends itself to the sort of nothing feeling of the story.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being super supportive.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	6. Highschool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weiss should really know better than to get mixed up with Ruby and Penny, but she kept going back to them again and again. It's not like it's anything serious. It's just blowing off a little steam. That's all it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Fairly liberal usage of the D-slur

“Ruby, Penny, stop, we’re going to get caught.” Weiss hissed in between moans as the two completely disregarded her warning and kept kissing and nibbling at her neck. This was ridiculous. The three of them were crammed into one of the caretaker’s cupboards that Ruby just happened to have the key to.

Weiss let out a small whimper as Ruby’s tongue traced higher and she lightly nipped at Weiss’ ear. This had to be her idea. Ruby was by far the most daring of them all, and the original instigator of this little ménage a trois.

A right trio the three of them made too, the resident troublemaker, the head girl, and the smartest girl in the school. Out in public, they showed nothing but a deep animosity for one another. In private, however...

“Weiss always makes the prettiest noises, doesn’t she?” Ruby asked of Penny, taking a small break from teasing Weiss’ earlobe. “Who would have thought the high and mighty head girl would be reduced to such a mess with only a few kisses.”

That irked Weiss enough to give Ruby a small shove away from her, though she deigned to let Penny continue her ministrations. She honestly didn’t know why she’d accepted Ruby’s offer of some ‘stress relief’ nor did she know how Ruby had even known she was gay. And yet, here they were, indulging in their deviant desires. 

“That was rude.” Ruby smirked cockily, brushing down her skirt and watching in amusement as Weiss gasped in pleasure as Penny found her pulse and tongued at it lazily.

“Shut up.” Weiss hissed before dissolving into helpless moans. The torture continued for another couple of minutes before Penny finally relented and straightened herself out.

“Did you enjoy that, Weiss?” She asked innocently, and Weiss glowered at her just a little, but she couldn’t stay annoyed at Penny for long.

“Yes, I did. Thank you, Penny.” Weiss and Penny hadn’t exactly been friends before they started having these rendezvous, but they’d known each other well enough and had been friendly.

“I’m glad!” Penny beamed, finishing straightening out her uniform. “Oh, did you still want some help with your physics homework?”

“No, I think I’ve got it, thanks.” Weiss reassured the girl as Ruby piped up.

“I could do with some help with my physics homework.” Weiss rolled her eyes as she buttoned up her collar and straightened out her tie.

“I thought you were supposed to be the second smartest girl in the school?” She mocked, earning a glare from Ruby.

“I am, but homework is boring.” Ruby protested as she, unlike the other two, artfully messed up her uniform. Ruby was always like this, bucking the school rules in the name of individuality and freedom of expression. How did she not understand that school was supposed to be teaching them how to be productive members of society?

Weiss felt a small stab of guilt as she remembered that she too was bucking the school rules with her illicit relationship with Ruby and Penny. Not that it was anything romantic, of course, but the school forbade any kind of fraternisation amongst its students. Such things distracted from your studies, and Weiss should have been the rule’s primary enforcer, but had instead broken it more times than she could count.

“You should get going, your free period is nearly over and I don’t need you getting another detention.”

“Awwwww, you do care, Princess.” Ruby simpered mockingly, which made Weiss want to wipe the smug look off her face.

“It’s my job to make sure all students are remaining out of trouble.”

“I hate to say, Weiss, but you’re not doing a good job of staying out of trouble yourself.” Penny pointed out, and Weiss scowled deeply as her hypocrisy was pointed out.

“It’s only wrong if I get caught, which is why none of us are going to get caught.” Weiss said primly, and Ruby started snickering.

“Wow, those are some fancy mental gymnastics you’re doing there, Princess.” She tittered, walking over to the door. “See you both tomorrow?” Weiss nodded reluctantly whilst Penny did so eagerly.

With a cocky salute, Ruby slipped out of the cupboard, leaving Weiss and Penny alone together. “I don’t know why you’re so happy to indulge in such indecent activities.” Weiss spoke to fill the awkward silence as she finished making her uniform presentable.

“Same as you, I guess. I’m very gay and I like kissing you and Ruby.” Penny shrugged nonchalantly, checking herself in her phone and smoothing out her fringe.

“I don’t like it…” Weiss protested weakly. “It’s just a necessity, blowing off a little steam as necessary.”

“If you say so.” Penny tucked away her phone before walking over to the door. “See you tomorrow, Weiss.” And with that, Penny left as well, leaving Weiss alone.

Sighing deeply, Weiss leaned against the wall and counted down until it was safe for her to leave. As she waited, she tried to untangle the knots her stomach always seemed to contort itself into whenever she had these sessions with Ruby and Penny. As she calmed down, the familiar sting of guilt filled her, more than just from breaking the school’s rules, but also indulging her sinful desires. She was able to ignore the weight of it in the moment, losing herself to the pleasures Ruby and Penny wrought, but afterwards it all came rushing back to her.

Her father had raised her to be a good Christian girl. She went to church every Sunday and said her prayers. If only he knew just far she had strayed from the path of righteousness behind closed doors. How much she lusted for the female form, and how much she’d begged and pleaded God for guidance.

If only she could be normal, be attracted to men like she should be. But no, instead she was lured by the strangely soft and honeyed words of Ruby Rose, so at odds with her usual irreverent coarseness.

Checking her phone, Weiss was surprised that five minutes had passed so quickly. Standing up and brushing herself off one last time, Weiss slipped out of the cupboard and into the crush of students thronging in the corridors heading to their next lessons.

* * *

“How is it you’re able to keep doing this?” Weiss groaned, burying her face in her hands to avoid having to look at the two students in detention. “I thought I specifically asked you not to get into trouble.”

“You might have done that.” Ruby said flippantly, her boots propped up on the desk. “But I really can’t remember.”

“I don’t know why I expected anything better from you.” Weiss shook her head, peeking out from between her fingers at the other person in detention. “You, I did expect better from, Penny.” The academic girl shrank in her seat, unable to look up at Weiss.

“It’s not her fault.” Ruby cut in quickly. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“She was at the scene.” Weiss pointed out, picking up the incident report she’d been handed. Normally, she wasn’t involved in disciplinary matters, but all of the students involved were refusing to talk to the teachers about the exact details, so Weiss and Jaune, the head boy, had been called in to see if they could get anything out of them.

“It says here that you and Mercury Black were caught fighting in the courtyard whilst Emerald Sustrai and Penny Polendina watched.” Weiss read out, struggling to decipher Dr Oobleck’s handwriting. “It says something about Nelson? I don’t know a student named Nelson.”

“Oh, it’s not a student, it’s sort of a wrestling move. You just get the other guy like this.” Ruby demonstrated the move whilst Weiss looked on with a raised eyebrow.

“I see…” She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, setting aside the paper. “You say Penny wasn’t involved, yet you’ve refused to give any reason as to why, or why she should not be punished.”

Ruby flashed Penny a look and the girl curled up deeper on herself. “Look, she wasn’t involved. Why can’t you just believe me on that?” Ruby scowled up at Weiss. “Haven’t we been doing stuff together for long enough that you know you can trust me?”

“I have to tell the teachers something believable.” Weiss snapped back, her face flushing at the reminder of the indiscretions she’d committed. “I can’t just tell them ‘Oh it’s fine, you can trust Ruby because we’ve been breaking the rules together’, can I?”

“Well, no, but-”

“So just tell me what the fuck happened.” Weiss slammed her hands down on the desk, shocking Ruby enough to remove her boots from it. “Either that or we’ll just have to go on what Mercury and Emerald have to say, and I’m certain it won’t be good for either of you.”

Ruby stayed mutinously silent for a while, arms folded as she refused to look at Weiss. “I was walking through the courtyard heading for Maths, then I saw Mercury had Penny cornered up against the wall, and nobody was doing anything about it.”

Weiss sniffed in annoyance. That didn’t surprise her very much, Penny wasn’t very well liked amongst most of the students. Being both incredibly nerdy and very passive made her a big target for bullying, which the faculty could never deal with adequately.

“So you decided some violence was in order?”

“No, not yet, at least.” Ruby grumbled, now bothering to meet Weiss’ gaze. “I just went over and told him to leave her alone.”

“And he didn’t, so then things got physical?” Weiss asked, but Ruby shook her head.

“I was being good, I didn’t want to fight him, but then…” Ruby glanced over at Penny again who was watching the interrogation from behind her hunched up knees. “He called Penny a dyke.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Ruby looked defiantly up at Weiss. “He said we were just a couple of dykes and that we needed to be taught a lesson. So I decided to teach him one instead.”

“And that was worth getting into a fight with him over?” Weiss asked incredulously. “Ruby, you call yourself a dyke often enough.”

“That’s reclaiming it, it’s different. I’d never call Penny that unless she was okay with it, which she’s not. That wanker Mercury’s got no right to call anyone that.” Ruby growled, eyes flashing angrily. “So there you go. Happy now?”

“Not particularly.” Weiss sighed, walking back to the teacher’s desk and hopping up to sit on it. She really should have expected something like this from Ruby. This wasn’t the first time she’d been caught and punished for getting physical with people for their perceived homophobia.

“Ruby, why can’t you just let these things go?”

“Excuse me?” Ruby glowered at Weiss, who let out another deep sigh.

“You keep doing this, and for what? You’re hardly going to get the faculty on your side if you keep fighting people over things like this.” She explained as patiently as she could.

“...Are you for real right now?” Ruby stared incredulously at Weiss. “What, you think I should reason with homophobes? Listen to their side and try to compromise with them?”

“I don’t see why not. Rational discussion trumps wanton violence.” Weiss asserted confidently, studiously ignoring how Ruby rolled her eyes and snorted in disdain.

“Do… Do you not know anything about any kind of civil rights movement?”

“Of course I do, we learned about it in history classes.” Weiss said, earning her another disdainful snort.

“Right, then you should know that most of them weren’t these prissy discussions, they were violent. Have you never heard of Stonewall? It was a fucking riot, Weiss. We wouldn’t have rights if it wasn’t for people actually fighting. They don’t care about people like us.”

“People like you, you mean.” Weiss blurted out. It was instinctive, but she knew she’d said something very wrong by the way Ruby and Penny were looking at her.

“Please say you didn’t mean that, Weiss.” Penny spoke for the first time, her voice quiet and broken. In the face of this, Weiss did the only thing she could.

She doubled down.

“I’m not like you, I’m not some degenerate.” She defended, vaguely aware of Ruby’s growing ire. “I’m not some queer.”

“Not some…” Ruby was seething now and she got up from the desk to tower over Weiss. “Are you seriously trying to say that you’re not gay or whatever right now? After everything the three of us have done together, all the times you’ve been between our legs.”

“Those were just lapses.” Weiss insisted stubbornly.

“I don’t fucking believe this.” Ruby started pacing back and forth, her angry gaze still fixed on Weiss. “I cannot  _ fucking _ believe this!”

“Weiss, you’re just saying that, right? You don’t really think…?” Penny asked and Weiss was shocked to see her eyes tearing up.

“It’s wrong for me to feel like this about women.” Weiss insisted, fully committed now. “These urges are wrong, I’m just too weak to resist them.”

“Oh my fucking god. Do you not hear yourself?!” Ruby looked at Weiss with a mix of surprise and irritation. She eventually let out a scream of frustration and marched over to the door. “I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with  _ you _ .”

“You can’t just leave!” Weiss protested, walking over to try and stop Ruby, only to be held in place by a fierce glare from the goth girl.

“I can and I am. Penny, you coming?” Ruby and Weiss turned to look at Penny, who’d remained seated in her hunched up position, but started to uncurl from herself when Ruby called for her.

“Penny?” Weiss’ eyes grew wide as Penny got up and joined Ruby, taking her hand. “What are you doing?”

“Weiss… I-I thought we had something.” Penny gave her a sorrowful look. “I just don’t know how you can say things like that.” Weiss opened her mouth to respond with something, anything, but the chance was snatched away as Ruby pulled Penny out of the room, leaving Weiss standing there alone, wondering what had just happened and why she felt so sick.

* * *

For the next couple of weeks, Ruby and Penny avoided Weiss like the plague. Not that they spent much time together outside of their little sessions, but how much they went out of their way to avoid her was noticeable. What was also noticeable was how much more affectionate they were with one another. It wasn’t enough to draw the attention of the faculty, but Weiss had spent enough time with the two to recognise something was up between them, and for some reason it made her insides twist even more.

Really, she should be grateful. Ruby and Penny had removed the temptation from her. She should be able to move on from this silly infatuation with the fairer sex. Instead, she found herself missing Ruby and Penny’s touch even more than she normally did. She more than just missed it, she craved it, needed it. She’d been given a taste of what had felt like heaven, and now she was in a hell of her own making.

Weiss had no idea why she was feeling like this, so out of sorts and guilty. She’d done the right thing in ultimately rebuffing Ruby and Penny and their rulebreaking ways, so why did it feel like the worst mistake she’d ever made?

She tried all sorts of things to take her mind off it, throwing herself into her schoolwork, various other mindless activities, she’d even given even more prayer a go. None of it brought her comfort. There was a small part of her that kept insisting that she knew exactly what she needed to do to fix things, but she steadfastly ignored it.

Ultimately though, it all came crashing down on a cold November afternoon. Weiss was performing one of her daily checks around the school to ensure no rules were being broken, when she found exactly that behind the bicycle sheds.

Ruby and Penny locked in a passionate embrace, kissing wildly with their bodies intertwined. It wasn’t much more scandalous than some of their previous encounters, but it was still a flagrant breaking of the rules. Weiss should have broken it up immediately, but instead, something compelled her to stay just out of sight and watch them.

After a few moments, they broke apart breathing heavily, Ruby had a wide smile on her face, but Penny looked rather unhappy. “What’s wrong?” Ruby asked, brows knitting in concern.

“It’s just…” Penny looked away, hand grasping at her arm. “I miss Weiss.”

“Penny, you heard what she said, we’re better off without her.” Ruby’s smile twisted into a frown and she let out a small huff.

“I know, I know.” Penny sighed sadly, shuffling in place. “But I still miss her. Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t miss her.” There was something strained in Ruby’s voice, but that could easily be wishful thinking on Weiss’ part. Penny just gave Ruby a look and after a few moments she caved. “Okay, fine, I miss her, but I’m also still mad about what she said.”

“I’m not happy about it either.” Penny agreed, and Weiss felt her heart sink and twist uncomfortably. “I just thought we, y’know, had something special. More than us just making out and doing other things.” Penny blushed a little as did Weiss as they both remembered some of the things they’d all done together.

“So did I, but I guess we were wrong.” Ruby seemed to be properly upset now, and she scuffed her boot against the ground. “Not like we can really do anything about it though.” Weiss found herself a little confused by this discussion she was eavesdropping on. Both Ruby and Penny missed her? But they hated her, or at least Ruby did after she’d said those things. It made no sense, but still it also made her feel happy that they cared.

“Maybe we could talk to her?” Penny suggested a little hopefully. “Help her to understand.”

“We could try, I guess…” Ruby sounded rather reluctant. “But I don’t know if she’d be willing to listen.”

“We won’t know unless we try.” Crossing her arms, Penny set her jaw stubbornly and looked up at Ruby, who crumbled after a moment.

“Fine, I guess we could-.”

“Well, well, well. Look who it is.” Ruby was interrupted by a loud obnoxious voice and Weiss watched as Mercury emerged from around the other side of the bike shed, followed dutifully by Emerald. “Looks like the school’s resident lesbos are here, probably trying to get a little bit of privacy whilst they suck face.”

Something in Mercury’s tone made Weiss’ blood boil and it clearly enraged Ruby too as she stepped forward protectively. “You take that back and fuck off, Merc.”

“Oh, you gonna fight me again? We all know how badly that ended for you.” Mercury smirked smugly and Weiss winced. After Ruby had stormed out that previous day, the faculty had acted upon Mercury’s claims that Ruby had launched an unprovoked attack on him and Ruby had been given a week’s worth of detentions.

Ruby’s fists were clenching and unclenching as Penny reached out and tugged at the back of her blazer. “Ruby, let’s just go.”

“Listen to the little dyke, Red, she knows what’s up.” Mercury smiled cockily, hands thrust firmly in his pockets. “Then again, maybe she’s come around. How about it nerd girl? Fancy a real man?” He made a very inappropriate hip thrust at Penny, and something seemed to snap in Ruby.

With a roar, she lunged for Mercury, slamming a fist into his smug face and staggering him.

“Ruby, no!” Penny cried out as Mercury lashed out with a kick that connected solidly with Ruby’s knee and made her buckle in pain.

Weiss couldn’t let this continue. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from around the side of the shed and called out. “Stop that now!” Mercury froze, just as he was about to hammer a kick into Ruby’s stomach.

“Weiss, I was just teaching Ruby here some discipline.” He tried to use some of his swagger, but Weiss’ frosty look put an end to that.

“Leave them alone and get out of here, now.” Weiss instructed coldly, stepping up into Mercury’s face.

“She started it, she threw the first punch.” Mercury defended himself, and Emerald nodded sycophantically behind him.

“That’s strange, from where I was standing it looked as though you were the first to attack.” Weiss sneered, something cold and angry sharpening in her chest.

“What?” Mercury looked between her and Ruby who was getting to her feet, wincing as she put weight on her knee. “You’re defending them? A couple of dykes!”

“I told you to leave!” Weiss spat again, glaring up at Mercury, who sneered back.

“I’ll just tell the teachers the truth, that she attacked first.”

“Oh, and who do you think they’ll believe? A known troublemaker such as yourself, or the head girl?” Weiss asked, a smug smirk playing across her lips as Mercury realised who had the upper hand here.

“Fine, but this isn't over.” He growled before stalking off, with Emerald in hot pursuit. Weiss waited until they were properly out of sight before rushing over to Ruby.

“Are you okay?” She asked in concern as Ruby supported her weight on Penny.

“I’ll be fine, knee’s just a little sore.” She glared up at Weiss. “What was that for?”

“I was helping you. What did it look like?”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” Ruby grumbled, trying to stand up properly. “I had it under control.”

“No, you didn’t.” Penny pointed out, giving Weiss a grateful smile. “Thank you, Weiss.”

Weiss didn’t know what to say to that, so instead she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I heard everything.”

“What?” Penny asked, perplexed.

“I heard what you and Ruby were saying about me.” Weiss confessed, hanging her head. “About you missing me and how you thought there was something more.”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed up at Weiss and she drew herself up to her full height. “And?”

“I don’t understand. I thought I’d stop feeling this way, but I miss you, both of you, even though I shouldn’t and it’s a sin.” The words tumbled forth from Weiss mouth, the dam finally broken as she gave voice to all her feelings, pleading with the pair. “I want you, I need you. I’m sorry for everything I said. Please.”

Ruby and Penny exchanged looks before Ruby looked back to Weiss. “Do you even know what you’re apologising for?”

“Not really…” Weiss admitted, looking away from Ruby’s piercing gaze. “I know I said some things that upset you both, but I don’t really know what. I just want to make it right and I want us to go back to how we were.”

“Weiss, we’re not interested in going back to that.” Ruby said and Penny nodded as Weiss’ heart plummeted.

“But you said that you both missed me.” Weiss said sadly, wondering if she’d horribly misjudged what was happening.

“And we do.” Penny said, her tone reassuring. “But Ruby and I are dating now. When we say we’re not interested in going back, we mean back to the ‘friends with benefits’ and ‘blowing off steam together’ thing. We want an actual genuine relationship.”

“Oh.” Weiss didn’t really know what to say to that. Her innards squirmed in strange ways that felt both joyous and anxious. “A relationship? You mean dating?”

“That’s the idea.” Ruby said, a little bit of her irreverent and roguish charm returning. “We do miss you, Weiss, but we don’t want to keep doing the same thing and making the same mistakes over and over. We’ve gotta develop, y’know?”

Weiss looked between Ruby and Penny, between the former’s confident smile and the latter’s encouraging one. Could she do this? Did she dare? It went against everything she’d been taught and broke so many rules, but it felt like everything she ever wanted and more. If she could only take that first step.

Hesitantly, Weiss opened her mouth to answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More aggressive and protective Ruby is quite fun to write, she's had to put up with a lot, the poor lass. It's also been a little while since I've done Weiss as still closeted, though this is a bit more extreme than the other times I've done it in the past.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being super helpful with everything. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being the best.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	7. Superheroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the newest heroes in Vale, Redshift, faces off against the villainous duo, FrostByte, before returning home to her loving girlfriends

Redshift may have been new amongst the heroes of Vale, but she was fast carving out a name for herself with her daring feats of bravery and heroism. No challenge was too small for her, but she was afraid this time she might have actually bitten off more than she could chew.

“FrostByte, cease your villainy at once!” She called out to the villainous duo, who paused in their efforts to crack open the bank vault to look at Redshift incredulously.

“Seriously? Does anyone talk like that these days?” Frost asked of her partner, who shrugged.

“You used to. You did like your pomp and circumstance.” Byte replied, the slight mechanical hitch of a voice modulator masking her voice as the pixels of her face mask switched to a teasing smirk.

“I stopped though.” Frost pointed out, at which Byte nodded. Meanwhile, Redshift was getting mildly annoyed that she was being ignored.

“Only because you got teased by Lady Thunder so much that you took a course on, and I quote, ‘how to speak like a teen: learn the lingo!’.” Byte reminded her, and Frost turned bright red and scowled at her partner.

“I thought we agreed never to speak of that again!” She hissed furiously as Byte looked completely unapologetic.

“Hey, take a hella chill pill, my dude.” She said, somehow keeping her voice completely deadpan.

“Shut up, Byte!” Frost groaned, burying her face in her hands. The villainous duo seemed to have completely forgotten that their heist had been interrupted by a superhero, and Redshift was not happy about it.

“Um, hello?!” She huffed irritably, tapping her foot. “Superhero here, trying to stop your dastardly plans.”

“Oh my god, did she really just say dastardly?” Frost asked Byte who nodded solemnly. “Look, kid, it’s very clear you are out of your league here.”

“Kid?!” Redshift shouted, incensed by the accusation. “I know for a fact you two are barely older than me!”

“We’ve also been in this game for longer.” Folding her arms, Byte looked at her almost pityingly. “This isn’t something you just get into for fun. If you really want to be a hero, you should go intern as a sidekick for a while. You can get some proper training before you go up against villains like us.”

“Villains like you?” Redshift let out a laugh that came off meaner than she’d intended, but she decided to roll with it. “Are you for real? Nobody takes FrostByte seriously.”

“Hey, we’re plenty serious.” Frost pouted from behind her scarf. “Soon this whole city shall kneel before us!”

“Um, Frost, what did we say about your delusions of grandeur?” Byte chided her partner gently, and Frost sighed deeply.

“That I need to keep it in check and maintain a good understanding of our capabilities.” She grumbled, folding her arms.

“And we do this because…?”

“Because the last time I got carried away and nearly caused another ice age that would have wiped out all of humanity as we know it.” Redshift blinked in surprise. She hadn’t heard of that one. Perhaps it was stopped very quickly by another hero who saw no need to report it.

“Exactly.” Byte reached out and patted Frost on the shoulder in this bizarre parody of an almost domestic scene. “You’re a very clever and brilliant woman, Frost, you just get a little carried away with yourself sometimes.”

“It’s a good thing I have you to keep me in check, babe.” Frost pulled down her scarf and Redshift got a brief glance at a pair of surprisingly soft looking lips as Frost pressed a kiss to the side of Byte’s mask before pulling back and replacing the scarf. “Now, where were we?”

“I believe we were just trying to persuade this new hero here that we are worth being taken seriously.”

“Oh, yeah.” Frost returned her attention to Redshift and she could sense the cocky smirk beneath the villainess’ scarf. “Right. We may not be in the same league as Salem or some of those villains, but we aren’t to be trifled with.”

“I take it that means you aren’t going to surrender and come quietly?” Redshift asked, shifting on the spot and preparing to start running.

“Of course not!” Frost declared, cracking her neck menacingly.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With a grin, Redshift pulled her goggles down over her eyes and sped forwards, colliding with Frost and sending her smashing into the wall. An impact at such high speeds would normally shatter every bone in a person’s body, but Redshift knew from the dossiers she’d read on the villainous duo that Frost was equipped with an exoskeleton beneath her layers of warm clothing.

The impact did knock the wind out of her, but before Redshift could capitalise on this, she was forced to dodge out of the way of a laser beam. She’d been so focused on the leader of the two, she’d forgotten that Byte was by far the stronger of them. Being a robot tended to do that. She sped away, dodging the robot’s laser fire as Frost scrambled to her feet.

“Speedster!” She called out to her partner, who sighed loudly.

“I hadn’t noticed.” Byte replied snippily, continuing to try to hit the evasive hero. “She’s fast, I’ll give her that.”

“Fastest girl alive!” Redshift taunted, as she tried to land a superspeed punch on Byte, but she was able to dodge back just in time. Clearly, the robot was also rather fast.

“Red and a speedster, I hope she’s alright with being sued.” Frost snarked at the hero, readying her weapons, the whine of the refrigeration units just audible over the sound of Byte’s weaponry.

“So says the Captain Cold knock-off!” Redshift jabbed back, pulling out one of her ball bearings and hurling it at Byte. Pretty much anything could be a dangerous weapon in the hands of a speedster, and Redshift favoured ball bearings, as they were small yet had enough mass to punch through most things.

Unfortunately, most things did not include Byte’s chassis, as it plinked off her harmlessly. Meanwhile, Frost was nearly incandescent with rage.

“Knock-off?! Captain Cold wishes he could be me!” She shrieked, stalking forward and thrusting out her fists. The metal gauntlets let out a fine spray of water that covered the floor, and with a burst of light, froze it into a slick beneath Redshift’s feet, sending her into an uncontrollable slide. “So he invents a cold gun. Everyone knows such a thing isn’t possible in such a small device! The heat sinks required would be massive!”

“Yeah yeah!” Redshift called back as she slid off the ice slick and regained her footing. “You’re so smart, I get it!”

“Of course I am!” Frost declared, marching forwards with her gauntlets crackling. “I did design and create all these things, didn’t I? Captain Cold wishes he had my knowledge of robotics and cybernetics!”

Redshift rolled her eyes and tried to take off again, but found herself pinned down by laser fire that was very carefully aimed so as not to hit her. “I don’t know how resilient you are. Consider it a professional courtesy.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Redshift blinked in confusion at the genuine sentiment from the robot. She was unused to this sort of treatment from villains. So often they were, to put it bluntly, massive dicks who didn’t give a shit about anyone except themselves.

Her contemplation of the odd politeness of these two was interrupted by Frost taking advantage of her distraction to launch a jet of water at her feet, freezing them to the floor. “Good. Now stay there, we’ve got work to do.” Frost sniffed derisively, turning her back on the now-trapped heroine, who tried desperately to free herself.

“You won’t be able to break it.” Byte said, almost kindly. “Frost spent months perfecting that blend so it would freeze harder than steel.”

“If you’re so smart, why are you doing this?” Redshift asked, slumping as she gave up on trying to free herself. “Just think how much good you could do for the world! You created an entire A.I. and a functional robot!”

Frost paused in her walk over to the vault door and looked back at Redshift. “You think I didn’t try?”

“What?”

“You really think I didn’t try to use my knowledge and talents to better humanity?” Frost turned around fully to look at the trapped hero, and she got the distinct feeling that she’d touched upon a very sore subject.

“That ice there, it’s identical to water in every way except for having both a higher melting point and a much higher UTS when frozen.” Frost explained, whilst Byte busied herself with vault instead and left her partner to monologue. “It was going to function as a preventative measure against the polar ice caps melting. Of course, nobody cares about that. Didn’t make enough money. I created a solar panel with five times the efficiency of the current most efficient photoelectric cells, and for the same cost. Still not enough profit to be made.”

Frost was now pacing back and forth as she ranted, whilst Byte threw concerned looks back at her. “Every time I created something that would better humanity, I was always rebuffed and told that it didn’t make enough money.”

“I didn’t know…” Redshift mumbled, shamefacedly. It had never really occurred to her to think of why people ended up as supervillains. She’d mostly assumed they liked the thrill or something.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten to the best bit yet.” Frost chuckled mirthlessly as Byte called out.

“It’s open, Frost.”

“Good. Start loading up, I’m nearly done here.” Frost called back, only for Byte to huff and cross her arms expectantly. “What?”

“Say please. I’m your partner, not some henchwoman.” Byte said irritably, tapping her foot.

“Sorry, babe. Please, could you start loading up?” Frost apologised and Byte unfolded her arm, her pixel mask changing to a happy smile as she trotted into the vault. “Right, where was I?”

“Something about the best bit.” Redshift sighed. If she wasn’t going to be able to get out of here herself, the least she could do was keep the duo occupied in the hopes that some other hero would come along and stop them.

“Right, yes.” Frost drew herself up to her full height and continued her monologue. “So, one day I decided that I would create something that was profitable, if they wanted something that made money, I’d give it to them. And it’s everywhere now!”

“Wait what?”

“Every SchneePhone has a chip inside that I designed and created. I single-handedly advanced the miniaturisation of mobile phones by at least five years. And you know what happened then?” Frost asked, and Redshift could feel the intensity of the villainess’ gaze behind her snow goggles.

“No.”

“I was robbed, is what happened. They screwed me out of my patent, my designs, everything. SchneeTech made millions if not billions off of the SchneePhones, and I got nothing, not even a single scrap of recognition for my achievement.” The woman all but screamed, arms waving animatedly in an oddly familiar way.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that.” Frost paused in her gesticulations to look at Redshift curiously, evidently surprised by her candor. “But all this? Turning to supervillainy? Is that really what you want to do?”

“Honestly?” Frost paused in contemplation. “No, not really. I’m good at it, so that’s gratifying. But I’d much rather be doing my research and inventing. Buuuuuut, since those aren’t profitable or whatever, and the rest of the world cares about money, I need a revenue stream somehow. Speaking of which...” She turned to look back at the vault where Byte was emerging, pushing a hovercart loaded with non-descript bags.

“I’ve got, babe.” She chirped, her pixelated expression joyous as she skipped over to Frost and bumped her mask against her partner’s. “You finished telling the new girl your tragic backstory?”

“It’s not a tragic backstory.” Frost huffed, marching with her partner to the door. “It’s a complex and deep motivation as to why I feel the need to resort to crime!”

“If you say so, sweetie.” Byte cooed, patting Frost on the shoulder. As the two were about to leave the building, Redshift shouted to them.

“Hey! Are you just leaving me here?” She called out in annoyance and the two villains paused.

“Pretty much. The ice will melt eventually, or someone will come along to melt you free.” Frost shrugged before walking out of the building.

“It was nice fighting you!” Byte called over cheerfully. “Oh, and don’t forget to think about what we said about interning as a sidekick!” And with that she was gone, leaving Redshift stuck alone in the middle of the bank.

* * *

It took about an hour before there was a response from anyone. There’d been an attack downtown by King Scorpion that had taken most of the other heroes’ attention, so a small bank robbery hadn’t been worth their time.

It was starting to get late as Ruby climbed the stairs up to her apartment. She’d dropped off her costume and gear at her low-budget base, which she shared with her sister, and was soon back in her street clothes.

Opening the door, she was met with a delicious smell and she instantly relaxed, the stress of her failed fight melting away. Dropping her keys in the cute cat-themed bowl by the door, Ruby walked into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend standing at the stove.

“Hey, Ruby. Bad day at work?” Weiss asked, pausing in her sautéing to accept the hug from her girlfriend. Nodding against Weiss’ back, Ruby nuzzled closer.

“Where’s Penny?” She mumbled, feeling her eyes droop from exhaustion.

“In the bedroom. You feel up to having dinner now, or do you want to take a nap?” Weiss asked and Ruby shook her head.

“Dinner first, then snuggles and sleep.” She said finally releasing Weiss to go sit at the dinner table.

“Well, if you could fetch Penny, we can all eat together, it won’t be long.” Groaning a little as she got up again, Ruby sloped out and down the hallway and into the bedroom.

“Pennyyyyyyyyy.” She whined, flopping onto the bed and closing her eyes as a hand reached out and petted her on the head.

“Salutations, Ruby! How was work?” Penny asked and Ruby rolled over to look up at her other girlfriend.

“Hard, I had to deal with these two really obnoxious people today.” Ruby said, remembering her fight with FrostByte. It irked her how easily she’d been taken down by the pair. She was supposed to be one of the best young heroes, but she’d been beaten by a pair of C-Listers.

“If it makes you feel any better, Weiss and I had to deal with someone interrupting our project work.” Penny said, continuing to pet Ruby’s head.

“Is it still going okay?” Ruby asked in concern, propping herself up to look at Penny properly. She knew Weiss’ project was very important to the both of them. It was hopefully going to help Weiss earn that doctorate she’d been working towards for ages.

“Yes, it’s fine, we were able to stop her, it was just annoying to have a delay.” Penny sighed, shaking her head. “And you know how Weiss can get about interruptions to her work.”

Ruby nodded, remembering previous instances where something had interfered with Weiss’ work, the ranting and angry gesticulations until she was eventually calmed down. Weiss had quite a few issues with controlling her temper, and it could get quite scary sometimes, but she was working on it.

Penny and Ruby suspected it had a lot to do with her family and how underappreciated she was by them. Not to mention how she hadn’t had a healthy outlet for her emotions growing up, and it led to Weiss bottling things up until they exploded.

“Weiss is making dinner, then we can have snuggles.” Ruby said, rolling lazily to the side of the bed and flopping off. Holding out a hand for Penny, Ruby led her girlfriend out of the bedroom and back into the kitchen, where Weiss was finishing laying out the table with plates of food.

“There you two are.” She said as she took off her apron and hung it up. “Dinner’s ready.” With a grateful smile, Ruby slid into her seat and immediately began wolfing down her double portion. She felt a little guilty not telling her girlfriends about her powers or her new double life as a hero, but they were both very accommodating of her need for a lot of food.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d lucked into this living situation. She’d seen the ad for a spare room almost a year ago now, sharing with a doctorate student and her lab assistant. The rent had been cheap enough that it seemed like a dream come true, so of course she’d accepted immediately. She’d only realised what a terrible mistake she’d made when she first met Weiss and Penny and discovered that they were unfairly hot.

Ruby had managed to last a full month before breaking down and confessing her deep attraction to her roommates. It had often been said that Ruby wasn’t the most observant person, and it had never been more evident than when Penny and Weiss had informed her that they were dating  _ and _ that they’d been flirting with her ever since she’d moved in.

“Penny said you had to deal with someone interrupting your work today. I’m sorry.” Ruby said in between mouthfuls of chicken.

“It’s alright, it wasn’t too bad.” Weiss dismissed taking a few dainty bites of her own food. “I’d actually say it was rather productive.”

“Really?” Both Penny and Ruby stared at Weiss incredulously.

“Well, she was only interrupting because she didn’t understand why we were doing… what we’re doing.” Weiss said cryptically, but Ruby was used to it by now. Weiss was very protective of her work. It was her baby after all. “But I explained it to her, and I think she understands at least a little bit now.”

“Well that’s good.” Ruby smiled thoughtfully as she remembered what Frost had told her earlier. “Actually, I had something similar happen to me today.”

“Oh? Difficult customers?” Weiss asked, and Ruby had to quickly remember what her cover job was, she hadn’t been using it very long.

“Something like that.” Ruby said, thinking the incident over. Now that the sting of defeat had lessened somewhat she was able to give more critical thought to Frost’s words. “It’s hard to explain, but I had some incorrect assumptions about them. Not that they were in the right for what they were doing, mind you, but I sort of understood why they were doing it after they explained it.”

“In my experience, sometimes people do bad things with the best intentions.” Penny said as she gave Weiss an indecipherable look, and the white-haired girl cleared her throat loudly.

“Yes, well, I’m glad you were able to resolve your issue as well.”

“Awww. Thanks, Weiss.” Ruby cooed, swallowing down the last of her food and pushing the plate away from her. “Can we skip the washing up now though? Those two still tired me out from having to deal with them.”

“Same with me, really.” Weiss agreed, finishing off her own dinner. “I could do with a nap too. Penny?”

“You know I’m always happy to have snuggle time with you both.” She smiled, quickly finishing off her own food and standing up. Together, the three girlfriends made their way into the bedroom and got undressed. As they did, Ruby noticed an angry dark smudge on the back of Weiss’ shoulder.

“Weiss, did you hurt yourself? What happened?” She asked in concern, and Weiss glanced over her shoulder and winced as she flexed the bruised muscle.

“Oh, I fell on the stairs coming back from the labs.” Weiss explained, and Ruby shook her head.

“You’re so clumsy, Weiss, I swear you keep coming back with all these injuries.” She sighed, reaching out to rub the mark gently. “You need to be more careful, I worry about you.”

“I’ll be fine.” Weiss reassured her, taking Ruby’s hand and gently kissing the fingers. “Let’s get into bed, babe.” Something about the inflection in Weiss’ voice when she used Ruby’s pet name stirred something in Ruby’s brain, but it was probably from all those other times Weiss had called her that.

Together, the three crawled into bed, Ruby in the centre and flanked by Weiss and Penny. “Love you, Penny.”

“Love you too, Sweetie.” Again that thought stirred just out of reach in Ruby’s mind, but she ignored it and snuggled in between her girlfriends. Her first proper outing as a hero might not have gone quite according to plan, but at least she had her amazing and supportive girlfriends to come back to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I love superhero stuff, so this was possibly the most fun to write and is another candidate for being expanded into a full blown AU. And if there's one dynamic I love in superhero stories, it's heroes and villains being on relatively friendly terms with one another. Of course here, they're completely clueless dumbasses, but that's just for comedy purposes.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being so diligent with it when I'm constantly churning out content. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being super cute.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	8. Free Day/Cyberpunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weiss has a job for the hacker supreme, Crescent Rose. Free her girlfriend from her father's clutches, only there's something she's not telling Ruby about her girlfriend...

Ruby had been hired by all sorts in her time as one of the best hackers in New Vale, from people who could barely scrape together the credits for her fees to technocrats looking to get a leg up on their competition. And yet, in spite of this diverse clientele, Ruby still found herself surprised by her latest petitioner.

She’d used an anonymizer to try to conceal her identity, but it was off the shelf. Top of the line and expensive and to most people a useful tool. Unfortunately for this prospective client, Ruby and most of her compatriots knew about the critical vulnerability in the software that allowed her to easily find the person’s identity, one Weiss Schnee.

Everyone in Remnant knew of the Schnee Corporation, the biggest of them all. Most other companies were either owned by them in some way or had some kind of tenuous business deal with them to ensure their survival. And of course, everyone knew about the family that owned the corporation, and the heir apparent, Weiss Schnee.

It wasn’t just the identity of the client either, it was her request which did give some insight into why she was hiring someone like Ruby rather than using the corporation’s assets.

‘My father is holding my girlfriend captive and I require someone of your particular skill set to assist me in liberating her. I am willing to pay twice your asking rate, half now as a retainer and the rest upon completion of the job.’

Ruby spent quite a while mulling the request over in her head, fiddling with one of her many fidget toys as she spun in her chair. The girl must be desperate if she was both willing to pay that much and put such an amount down as deposit. Ruby could very easily just take the down payment and leave it at that. It was as much as a normal job would cost her, and she was tempted. The Schnee girl could definitely afford it, and Ruby was a little reticent to work for a member of the Schnee family themselves.

But something about the message tugged at Ruby’s heartstrings, reminding her of why she started doing this sort of thing in the first place. After another few moments of contemplation, Ruby tapped out a reply and sent it off.

She only had to wait for a couple of minutes before an alert pinged and she checked the shell account she used for her illicit transactions. The Schnee girl must really be desperate, she’d been waiting for the response and had the money all ready.

Smiling in satisfaction, Ruby typed out another quick reply. Normally, she didn’t do face to face meetings, but for this much, she could extend some courtesy to Miss Schnee. Instructions for the meeting spot sent off, Ruby spun around and grabbed her phone to call up one of her associates.

“Hey, sis, I’ve got a job that might need some backup in case it goes south.”

* * *

“I don’t like this, Rubes.” Yang’s concerned voice crackled over Ruby’s earpiece. “You never meet with clients in person.”

“She’s paying double, Yang.” Ruby reiterated with a sigh. “I can afford her a small courtesy.”

“She’s a Schnee though. It could be a trap!” Yang insisted stubbornly and Ruby rolled her eyes.

“Why do you think I’m not waiting directly at the meeting point and have you as backup?” Yang didn’t have an answer for that but she continued to grumble unhappily under her breath. Shaking her head, Ruby continued watching the square where she’d arranged to meet Weiss Schnee. It was crowded, too busy for a tail on foot to keep up easily. Of course it didn’t stop other tracking systems, but Ruby has solutions for that.

Peering down from her vantage point, Ruby peered through her binoculars, trying to pick out the heiress. She was expecting to look for someone who either stuck out like a sore thumb or was trying to blend in too much. It took her a while to pick out Weiss in the crowd, she’d clearly put a lot of effort into staying just below Ruby’s notice. But ultimately, her upgrades gave her away, just a little too fancy for someone on this side of the city.

Smirking to herself, Ruby flipped open her battered laptop beside her and began sniffing the packets being handled by the nearby relay tower. If she was correct then… yes! Once again, the young Miss Schnee’s wealth betrayed her in small ways. A few of the packets she saw had encryption key lengths that were, quite frankly, overkill.

She was probably using Schnee Corp’s latest algorithm, an absolute behemoth that would be impossible to crack for a few decades, but also required so much computational power to decrypt it was completely impractical.

With a few keystrokes, Ruby traced the packets back to their origin and gained remote access to the young Miss Schnee’s phone. It took less than a minute to brute-force her password. She would have thought someone such as her would have a more secure password.

Shaking her head, Ruby went about her business, setting up a few programs to provide fake location data to the various pieces of tracking software, including the ones Weiss probably didn’t know about. Once she was sure Weiss couldn’t be tracked nor her calls listened in or traced, Ruby dialled her number and watched as the heiress raised a hand to her ear.

“Hello?” Her voice was oddly soothing and melodic and somehow set Ruby immediately at ease. “Is this Crescent Rose?”

“You would be correct.” Ruby answered, safe in the knowledge that her voice modulator would ensure she wouldn’t be recognised. “Forgive the caution, but you really can’t be too careful. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what?”

“You had so much tracking software on your phone, I’ve currently got it feeding back spoofed location data to your handlers.” Ruby explained with a hint of smugness.

“I did wonder how you got my number.” The young woman didn’t sound particularly surprised, but Ruby simply chalked that up to her reputation. “So, you wanted to see me?”

“Yes. Follow my instructions and we can meet in person.” Ruby told Weiss, getting to her feet and packing up her gear. Weaving her way across the rooftops, Ruby guided Weiss to a nearby alleyway. Close enough to the hustle and bustle that they could flee and blend in as necessary, but far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard. Ruby watched as Weiss waited perfectly still, before she swung herself over the edge of the building and scrambled down the fire escape to drop down behind her client.

“Ahem.” She fake-coughed to gain Weiss’ attention, her voice distorted by another modulator. “Miss Schnee.” Weiss turned to face Ruby, and she was annoyed to discover that the pictures of her didn’t do her justice. Flawless porcelain white skin and bright blue eyes, one just slightly brighter than the other, betraying its cybernetic nature. Weiss Schnee was nothing short of gorgeous, and it was too much for Ruby’s tiny gay heart. If only she wasn’t a Schnee, or already in possession of a girlfriend.

“I thought you’d be taller.” Ruby frowned at Weiss’ comment, but remained silent.

“I want the details of this job.” Ruby said, straight to business. The sooner she could get this job done, the sooner she’d get paid.

“Right. My father has imprisoned my girlfriend in a vault, I’ve tried to crack in myself, but I’m not a good enough hacker, and that’s where you come in.”

“He can do that?” Ruby asked curiously, and Weiss snorted in derision.

“He’s Jacques Schnee.” She said by way of explanation and Ruby nodded. The man owned pretty much everything, and he pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted.

“Right, daft question. Another one, then. Why not just wait until he or someone else goes in and just do it like that?” Weiss frowned and shook her head.

“No one goes in there except for emergencies. It’s a sealed environment.” Ruby blinked in confusion. This was getting to be more than a little concerning and she was starting to understand why Weiss was so desperate to get her girlfriend out.

“Right, and I assume causing one of these accidents is out of the picture?” Weiss nodded and Ruby sighed deeply. The sound distorted more than a little by her voice modulator. “Anything else I should know.”

“Yes, um.” Weiss looked oddly sheepish and she looked anywhere but at Ruby. “There’s no remote access to the entrance. I’d need to sneak you into the Schnee Corporation headquarters.”

“No, oh no no no.” Ruby protested vehemently, shaking her head. “That’s a no go.”

“Please, I need you , we both need you.” Weiss pleaded, reaching out briefly but then retreating. “Father has kept her locked up for years now, it’s inhuman.”

“I like being free, and that is far far too much danger. No.” Ruby insisted again, hating that her resolve was starting to crumble in the face of Weiss’ pleading expression. Freeing this other woman did greatly appeal to Ruby’s sense of justice as well. But stepping right into the lair of the beast was just too far.

“Ruby, please.” They both froze as they realised what Weiss had just said. Then in a burst of panic, Ruby spun on the spot, ready to run and call in Yang. How had this happened? How had she been so badly compromised that this girl knew her name?

Her flight was arrested, however, by a strong grip on her wrist and she looked back at Weiss, who held onto her tightly, desperation flickering in her eye. Ruby considered fighting, but she wasn’t very good at that, that was Yang’s job. She reached up to turn on her earpiece, but then there was a loud burst of static from it that made her wince.

“You won’t be able to reach your sister, I’m broadcasting static across all channels in the local area.” Weiss explained, her grip not loosening. “Please just listen to me.”

“How do you know my name?” Ruby asked, fear gripping at her heart.

“I’m not so good at hacking, but I do know how to social engineer very well.” Weiss told her, sounding rather embarrassed. “A friend of mine made contact with your sister. She can get rather loose lipped when drunk and around pretty women. Wouldn’t stop bragging about her genius hacker sister.” Ruby scowled, she was going to have words with Yang if she managed to get out of this.

“So what? You going to drag me off to daddy Schnee and turn me in? The infamous Crescent Rose.”

“What? No!” Weiss said in shock, recoiling a little at the vitriol in Ruby’s voice. “I just really need your help. I’m paying you more than enough. I need to get Penny out of there.”

Ruby was starting to think a weakness around pretty women was something she and Yang shared, as she slumped in defeat. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so so much!” Weiss breathed a massive sigh of relief and released her hold on Ruby.

“I doubt it’s going to be easy though.” Ruby warned, already trying to work through a plan in her head. “I’m going to need building schematics, guard rotas, passwords, everything. I am not going into a place like that without having complete control of the situation.” Ruby didn’t technically need all of that, but this was her last chance at maybe getting out of this. Giving Ruby unrestricted access to Schnee Corp’s network was incredibly dangerous.

“Done, I just want her out of there.” Weiss agreed immediately, and Ruby sighed, she was committed now.

“Right, I guess we’re breaking your girlfriend out.”

* * *

It took several weeks to prepare fully for the break in. Ruby spent most of her time poring over various documents Weiss obtained for her, as well as sniffing around the Schnee Corp networks. Weiss had indeed been right about there being a completely cut off section of the network, no connections to the outside world at all.

Something that wasn’t helping Ruby in this endeavour was how closely she ended up working with Weiss. She started to learn a lot more about the heiress than she expected. The young woman hated her father’s corporation, even before his imprisonment of her girlfriend. Even her various upgrades had a dark story to them. She’d been forced to get them by her father as a demonstration of Schnee Corporation’s advances, and it had taken her years to scrub them clean of all the monitoring software that had been on them.

“I’m actually kind of envious of you.” Weiss had said one day as they worked on mapping out the guard patrol routes from various camera feeds. “You’re still fully organic. I miss being able to feel even simple things like the sun on my skin.”

Ruby had point blank refused to have any upgrades, having decided a long time ago that she didn’t want to cede control of any part of her to the manufacturers. No matter how much she scrubbed the upgrades and installed her own software, she still would not have true ownership of that part of herself anymore.

As the day of the heist approached, Ruby found herself becoming more and more infatuated with Weiss, and she both hated and loved it. The woman had a girlfriend, one she had been hired to free. There was never going to be anything between her and Weiss, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted there to be after she’d been almost blackmailed into doing this.

Eventually, the day came, and Weiss and Ruby found themselves standing outside the Schnee Corporation headquarters, Ruby’s foot tapping nervously.

“Try to relax, just act like you own the place.” Weiss told her. The heiress had been giving Ruby a few basic lessons in various social engineering techniques, so as not to stand out too much when they executed their plans.

“Easy for you to say, you pretty much do.” Ruby snarked back, but ceased her foot-tapping nonetheless. Checking her watch, Ruby counted down the seconds to go-time. “Okay, let’s go.”

Weiss led the way into the building, the doors swishing open for the two of them. Weiss scanned herself in through the barriers using one of her many implants, and Ruby did the same with a fake one she’d put together just for this. She’d already accessed the logs for the entry and exit systems and configured them to erase their presence the moment they were scanned in.

The two walked in long measured paces to the lifts and took one up to a few floors below their target. From there they walked on foot, climbing up various different stairwells to avoid any guards, until they stood outside the vault door. There were no door guards, Jacques Schnee was clearly so confident in his security he felt they were unnecessary. Big mistake on his part.

Whilst Weiss kept a lookout, Ruby was already fiddling with one of her laptops and had pried the control panel off to expose the inner circuitry. Cracking her knuckles, Ruby got to work, probing the system for any vulnerabilities. This was one of the harder hacks she’d had to do. She normally preferred to take her time to study the system she was breaking into, know it inside out, but she didn’t have that luxury with this one. This was the first time she was even seeing it.

“How’s it going?” Weiss hissed, looking back and forth along the corridor.

“Whoever wrote this is good, I’ll give them that.” Ruby said distractedly, skimming through lines of code. She recognised this style, she’d seen it in some of the other systems in Schnee Corp, and she knew some of their weaknesses. Ruby dug through the various dependencies, looking for her way in.

“Got it!” She hissed in triumph. This person should definitely be losing their job for this. A few quick changes and she had the machine dancing to her whims. “Right, type in 2718281828459045235360.” Ruby reeled off and Weiss hurried to follow the instructions.

Once the final digit was entered, there was a loud clunking as the various locks disengaged, and Weiss looked at Ruby in amazement. “You did it!”

“Of course I did, I am the best at what I do.” Ruby bragged just a little as she started packing up her things. “Right, let’s get your girlfriend and get out of here.”

Nodding eagerly, Weiss slipped through the opening door and into the room, Ruby following a little slower, not wanting to interrupt the reunion. Inside was an antechamber with another door at the end, where ‘P.E.N.N.Y.’ was inscribed.

“Odd way of writing it.” Ruby muttered to herself as Weiss threw open the door and rushed inside, calling out.

“Penny, I’m here!”

Ruby walked into the room and stopped, confused. This wasn’t a person’s room, it looked more like a server room, a large block of machines sitting in the centre whirring away, and there was nobody in the room other than them.

“Um, Weiss, where’s your girlfriend?” Ruby asked, utterly perplexed as Weiss turned away from a terminal on the servers and gestured to the stack.

“Here of course.” She returned to typing as Ruby started to put it together.

“Your girlfriend’s a machine!?” She shrieked in disbelief. This was what she’d been hired to break in to retrieve?

“Don’t call her that, it’s rude.” Weiss hissed, petting the monitor. “She’s a non-human intelligence. The Personality Emulating Neural Network, Y-class.”

“Penny...” The last piece slid into place and Ruby groaned. It was just her luck to get a massive weirdo for a client and inconvenient crush.

“And there, she should be able to talk now.” Weiss hit enter and grinned eagerly as a face dissolved into view on the screen.

“Weiss? What are you doing here, I thought your father had me locked away from you?”

“I hired someone to break in. We’re getting you out of here, my love.” Weiss reached out once more to touch the screen and Ruby noticed a camera focus on her.

“Oh? Is this the person who helped you break in? She’s cute!”

“Shush, Penny!” Weiss hissed, and Ruby got the distinct impression she’d be blushing if she still had skin. “Right, can you get yourself onto a hard drive we can carry?”

“Why don’t we just download her onto something?”

“There won’t be enough space on them, and I don’t want to risk leaving any part of her behind.” Weiss insisted, looking over the server stacks. “I don’t know what my father intends to do with her, but it won’t be good.”

“If I delete a few of my information files, I should be able to fit on a single hard drive.” Penny’s face contorted in thought. “I hope you didn’t need me to know all the data on all the currently discovered exoplanets.”

“No, that’s alright, but can you hurry it up, please? We don’t have much time.” Weiss said nervously, looking behind her at the exit.

A few tense minutes passed until Penny announced she was finished. Grinning broadly, Weiss grabbed the hefty hard drive and disconnected it from the servers.

“Okay, let’s go, before anyone notices something’s amiss.”

* * *

So their escape hadn’t quite gone to plan, but they’d managed to get away without any bullet holes. Ruby had only somewhat reluctantly brought Weiss back to her hideout, where she was busy hooking up Penny to her beefiest processors.

“Okay, I think this will work.” She said, finishing the final connection and booting it all up. After a couple of tense moments, a screen blinked into life, displaying Penny’s beaming face.

“Weiss! We did it? We escaped?”

“We did.” Weiss smiled brightly, the happiest Ruby had ever seen her. “And it’s all thanks to Ruby here.”

“Do you two know what you’re going to do now?” Ruby asked, feeling a little concerned for the pair. Weiss and Penny exchanged a look.

“I… I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure getting shot at by Schnee Corp security means I’ve officially cut ties with them.” Weiss said awkwardly. “I guess we’ll find something though.”

Ruby hesitated for a moment before making her tentative offer. “If you wanted, you could crash with me for a while.”

“Really?” Weiss and Penny exchanged a look. “You mean that?”

“Of course.” Ruby said, gaining a little more confidence.

“We get to stay with a cute girl? I’m all for it!” Penny cheered, making Ruby blush and forcing her to ask.

“Why is she so gay?” Ruby asked Weiss in a quiet voice but it was Penny who answered.

“Oh, Weiss was used as a primary basis for parts of my neural network. I’m super gay because she is.” She informed Ruby cheerfully, and the two embodied women squeaked in embarrassment.

“I think maybe we should discuss that later. For now, why don’t you two get settled in?” Ruby suggested before fleeing the room. Weiss had possibly been the strangest client Ruby had ever taken on, but she didn’t regret the decision one bit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've wanted an excuse to try my hand at some cyberpunk stuff for a little while now, so this afforded it rather well. It was a bit of a balancing act between actual hacking and computer science and just making stuff up. Oh and if anyone is interested, the bit where Ruby breaks into the vault, I stole it from an episode of Elementary.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being so helpful with this whole endeavour. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being a hella cutie.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


End file.
